


A Sun That Doesn't Burn

by dontsaycrazy, Miss_Macabre_Grey



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, And lots of flower metaphors, Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, Hinata and Daichi are humans, Kageyama and Suga are vampires, M/M, Prepare yourself for tooth-rotting fluff and soul-crushing angst, Romance, Slow Burn, Tragic love ensues, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5938372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontsaycrazy/pseuds/dontsaycrazy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Macabre_Grey/pseuds/Miss_Macabre_Grey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans and vampires were never supposed to get along; that's how things have always been.</p><p>Then comes along the human sunshine into Kageyama's life, and he finds out that humans may be nothing like he expected them to be. For decades, Koshi had told him day after day how humans can only bring heartache, but even a vampire as old as Koshi can change his mind, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

     A black roof, white walls, and windows always shut. The house has no central cooling, nor a way to let in even the smallest breeze. Heat manifests throughout the empty rooms of the dark mansion as the summer sun shines on outside. No inhabitant complains about the heat; their cold blood can flow within them with a vague sense of reason, as they feel the external warmth in their bodies.

     To increase the way dark absorbs the heat, the windows all have long, thick black drapes. They are not opened without good reason, lest they feel the filtered rays of sun on their skin. Though not dangerous, the sunlight through a window can still feel quite troublesome.

     Kageyama knows the trouble too well, yet represses the care. A tentative hand separates the drapes, just slightly, enough to take a quick glance outside.

     So bright. Too bright.

     Kageyama stops himself short, and closes the curtains with one swift movement of his hand. He steps away from the window while taking a deep breath.

     He remembers the words by heart, after more than half a century of hearing them from Koshi. They invade his mind every time the temptation to draw the curtains is too big, or whenever he is just mere inches away from jumping outside the window to stand under the cruel rays of a merciless sun.

     _“We are not to forge bonds with humans, Tobio. Only pain can come from such unions.”_

Kageyama knows that, of course. After hearing the same thing countless times, he knows full well that humans are forbidden territory for his kind. They have been ever since he can remember.

     But there was a time when, for him, humans were curiosity, along with cheery laughter behind his window, and lively games under the sunlight. Now, humans are nothing but burning skin, and sour tears.

     _“Humans die. And after they die, we remain, consumed by pain for the loss of something that will never return to us.”_

He knows that humans have nothing to offer but pain. He is reminded of that every time he hears Koshi cry behind closed doors, when he thinks no one is listening. But Kageyama has been listening for many, many years now.

    _He knows._

Yet when the loud sound of cheery laughter reaches him from behind the closed window, Kageyama can’t stop himself from pulling back the curtain one more time, just enough to be able to look into his front yard. Then, a shock of orange hair, and the bright smile that he sees on the other side of the glass immediately captivate him.

     “Tobio.”

     Kageyama drops the curtains immediately, and turns around in a heartbeat. He finds Koshi’s severe gaze fixed on him, and he already knows what he’s going to say.

     “I know,” Kageyama blurts out before Koshi can say anything. “I know.”

     Koshi’s previously stern expression relaxes into a mixture of sympathy and resignation. He reaches out to brush Kageyama’s hair back, and away from his eyes. His hand travels softly across his face to rest gently on his cheek for a moment. Kageyama closes his eyes and enjoys the caring touch, before Koshi pulls away. When Kageyama opens his eyes, he finds a soft smile, and warm eyes.

     They only have each other. There have little more in their world but each other: the thick curtains, the unrelenting heat, and painful memories.

     Only now, Kageyama also has the shine of orange locks under the sun, and the loud noise of laughter outside the window.

     Eventually, that will also turn into nothing but a painful memory. Kageyama knows that. Still, he can’t stop himself from turning around to gaze longingly at the curtain-covered window, before turning away from it with a badly concealed sigh.

~•~

     “Hey, Hinata! You can’t just take flowers from people’s gardens!” Daichi chastises, just as Hinata jumps over the small wooden fence that separates the colorful flowers in the garden from the sidewalk.

     “It’s fine, this house is abandoned, anyway,” Hinata calls from over his shoulder, crouching down to pull carefully at a bunch of small blue flowers. _“They’re gonna look great in mom’s garden,”_ he thinks.

     “Are you sure?” Tanaka asks, looking at the house behind the garden with a look of mild interest. “It looks like this garden is taken care of.”

     “Well, I’ve never seen anyone enter or leave,” Hinata retorts. He jumps back over the fence to rejoin his teammates on the sidewalk. “And the curtains are always drawn.”

     “Or maybe it’s inhabited by _vampires_!” Nishinoya jokes, wiggling his fingers under his chin in a fake-spooky manner.

     “Shut up, Noya-san, that’s scary as fuck!” Tanaka exclaims, shivering slightly.

     Hinata laughs heartily at the exchange, watching as Nishinoya keeps tormenting Tanaka. He suddenly stops laughing and turns to look at the curtain-covered window.

     “What is it, Hinata?” Daichi asks.

     “I . . . For a moment, I thought there was someone staring out the window,” Hinata explains, still looking absently at the window. Daichi surprises him by clasping his shoulder, and when Hinata turns to look at him, he gives him a reassuring smile.

     “Must be your imagination,” Daichi says.

     Hinata nods and smiles. He looks at the flowers in his hand, and then back at the window, before breaking into a sprint to catch up with his teammates, who have already begun walking away from the house.

~•~

     “I hate the summer.”

     Koshi looks up from his book to find Kageyama sprawled on the couch, looking at the ceiling with a deep frown on his face. Kageyama turns to look at him, and his frown deepens.

     “It’s hot, and the sun takes too long to set. I hate it,” he says, looking a lot like a little kid who’s about to throw a tantrum.

      “Aw, come on, Little Bat,” Koshi says, closing his book. He gives Kageyama a gentle smile, then reaches out to ruffle his hair. “Don’t be so depressing.”

     “Don’t call me that.” Kageyama scrunches up his nose in disgust at the nickname. He moves Koshi’s hand away from his hair and sits up on the couch, still sulking. “You know I hate it.”

     “But you’re my Little Bat!”

     “I’m not yo-!”

     “So young and naïve! Barely sixty-three years old!”

     “Stop it!”

     “My tiny little bat.”

     “Koshi!”

     Koshi bursts out laughing at Kageyama’s frustrated yelling, clutching to his stomach and kicking his feet.

     “Sorry, sorry!” he chokes out between bouts of laughter. “It’s just that . . . You get so mad when I call you that!”

     Kageyama glares furiously at Koshi, only furthering his amusement.

     “Stop laugh-!” Kageyama suddenly cuts himself off, and snaps his head to look at the main window of the adjacent room, visible through the doorway of the living room. Koshi stops laughing when he notices the serious look in Kageyama’s eyes.

     “What is it?” he asks.

     “Nothing,” Kageyama mumbles, still staring into the other room.

     But Koshi heard it too, for the second time in two days: the sound of bubbly laughter just behind window. So clear, so kind, so inviting.

     But the sun that burns behind the window offers a false welcome, no kindness in its relentless rays at all. Not for them, at least.

     The sound of Kageyama flopping back on the couch makes Koshi tear his eyes from the window to look at him. Kageyama curls up on the cushions with his back turned to him. His breathing is deep and soft, and if Koshi didn’t know any better, he’d think Kageyama has fallen asleep. But they don’t sleep. They can’t.

     Koshi stares at him for a moment, smiling softly.

 _“My tiny little bat,”_ he thinks, smirking to himself, before returning his attention to his book.

~•~

     “I’m home!” Hinata announces as soon as he opens the front door. He’s halfway through taking off his shoes when his little sister appears at the end of the hallway, smiling widely at him before running into his arms.

     “Mom, big brother is home!” Natsu calls out, dangling from her brother’s neck.

     “Natsu, you’re heavy!” Hinata chokes out, trying to get his sister back on the ground.

     “I am not! You’re so mean!”

     “Welcome home,” Hinata’s mom greets him from the living room.

     “Hey, mom.” Hinata finally sets free from Natsu’s loving death grip to make his way into the living room, where his mom is sitting reading a book. He reaches into his backpack, carefully retrieving a bunch of tiny blue flowers. “I brought you these!”

     “Aw, thanks, Shouyou, they’re lovely!”

     “I knew you’d like them,” Hinata says, grinning in response to his mother’s appreciative smile.

     “Where did you get them?”

     Hinata opens his mouth to answer, but stops himself short when Daichi’s earlier words start ringing in his mind: _You can’t just take flowers from people’s gardens!_

     “Don’t worry about it,” he ends up saying, scratching the back of his head with an airy laugh, before heading to his bedroom.

     Now that Hinata thinks about it, he can’t help but to feel a little bad about taking the flowers. But he knows the house is probably abandoned, anyway.

     _“I don’t think anybody will miss them,”_ he thinks.

~•~

     “Tobio!”

     Kageyama sits up on his bed at the sudden sound of Koshi’s voice crying his name from the garden. He opens the window and jumps outside, ready to defend Koshi from any menace that could’ve made him yell like that.

     “What is it!?” Kageyama asks, frantically looking around. The night is dark, and even with Koshi having light locks of hair, the lack of moonlight fails to shine well enough for Kageyama to find him. He finally spots him kneeling on the ground, and runs over to him as fast as he can. “Koshi! Are you okay?”

     Kageyama crouches down next to him, staring intently into his face. Koshi finally looks up at him, sporting a gigantic pout that surprises Kageyama into an even deeper frown.

     “Someone is stealing our flowers!” Koshi exclaims. Only then Kageyama notices how small Koshi’s beloved forget-me-not bush looks. The little blue flowers look significantly less plentiful than the last time he saw them.

     “Is that what made you so upset?” Kageyama asks with a raised eyebrow.

     “Yes!” Koshi replies indignantly. “You know how much I care about our garden!”

     Kageyama nods with an agreeing hum. Koshi spends several hours every night taking care of the front garden, and his efforts are certainly noticeable; unlike the rest of the house, always dark and a little sinister, the garden is colorful and cheery, with flowers of all sizes and colors adorning every corner they can reach.

     _“It gives me some semblance of normalcy,”_ Koshi had said once when Kageyama asked why he spent so much time tending after a bunch of plants. _“I mean, it gives me something to do every night. It gives me a sense of purpose, other than taking care of you. Makes me feel normal again, you know?”_

     Kageyama remembers wondering why Koshi chose the word "normal" in his explanation, but he never had the courage to ask what Koshi's version of normal was, in case it meant admitting that he does not like taking care of him.

     Kageyama stares at Koshi’s defeated figure for a moment, and then stands up with a small sigh. Koshi’s eyes follow him with a questioning look.

     “I’ll go buy some more flowers for you, then,” he says, wiping the dust from his pants.

     “Tobio, you don’t have to!” Koshi stands up as well, and gives him a gentle smile. “I’ll go.”

     “Why can’t _I_ go?” Kageyama asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s not like I have much to do at home, anyway.”

     “Well . . .” Koshi thinks it over for a while before answering, grimacing a little when he notices Kageyama’s frown deepening. “It’s still early, and there are probably a lot of people outside, so-”

     “I won’t hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re saying,” Kageyama interrupts him, trying, and failing, not to sound as offended as he is. “I can control myself, alright?”

     “I know that!” Koshi hurries to reassure him. “It’s just that it’s been a while since the last time we fed, and . . .” he trails off, ending his sentence with a shrug.

     “It’s easy. I just need to go to the flower shop, and buy some flowers, no big deal.” Kageyama scrutinizes Koshi’s face, waiting for the worry to leave his features. But his words were apparently not successful at being soothing, and Koshi still looks as unsure as he did before. “It’s not like I’m gonna kill everyone I run into, you know!” Kageyama says, exasperation already creeping into his voice.

     “No, but one mistake is enough to screw everything up, Tobio, you know that!”

     They are both silent for a while, staring each other down with firm eyes. Finally, Kageyama lets out a sigh, looking away. He returns his gaze to Koshi’s face, this time with a slightly softer look in his eyes.

     “Come on, Koshi. Just let me leave this house for a little while,” he pleads, and Koshi’s face finally softens. “It’s been weeks since I set foot outside that stupid fence.”

     Koshi’s entire face contorts into a thoughtful frown, and Kageyama already knows he’s achieved his goal. After a few moments of silent consideration, Koshi lets out a frustrated groan.

     “Ugh, fine!” he finally concedes, and Kageyama can’t stop a triumphant smirk from creeping into his face. “But I’ll come with you!”

     Kageyama doesn’t care. Nothing could trump on his excitement over finally leaving that house for a while. He gives a disdainful look in the ever-covered windows’ direction, and smirks one more time.

~•~

     "It's your first time going out in months, and you're wearing that?" Koshi asks, perplexed and disturbed. Koshi understands Kageyama had few opportunities to go out and see the latest fashion in person, but they own an ever-growing stack of magazines that show plenty of what-not-to-wear outfits.

     "I want to be comfortable. Who knows what will happen out there!" Kageyama defends, so genuine it makes Koshi judge him even more.

     "You're wearing a weird baseball cap and ugly sunglasses. Tobio, it's past sunset, you don't have to cover your eyes and face. Plus, what's with your hoodie? It's already hot outside; people will just think you're weird." Koshi cannot word it more kindly. Kageyama has to hear the truth.

     "Sh-shut up! The flower shop closes soon, right? I don't have time to change!"

     Koshi rolls his eyes almost far enough to see his brain. Of course Kageyama would be stubborn about wearing such monstrous outfit.

     "I guess if I walk twenty paces ahead of you and make it seem like we have no association, it's fine. Can't be seen with a dork like you, after all." Koshi's grin spreads wide.

     "Shut up! Like you go places often enough to get judged, anyway," Kageyama rebuts, storming past Koshi to the front door.

     "Alright, I guess, but we're going to see one of the few friends I do have, so try to at least act cool, Little Bat."

      Kageyama, face-flustered, glares daggers at Koshi.

     "Are we going or not?"

      Koshi answers with a small laugh, moving to Kageyama. Koshi opens the door and lets Kageyama take the first step out. The breeze instantly chills him in a way not unpleasant like the usual coldness of his body.

     A few more steps, and Kageyama walks beyond the front of the house porch. The dirt feels soft and muddy, and he can hear Koshi's squeaky footsteps behind his.

     "Forgot it rained for a few minutes. Don't mind mud, right?" Koshi asks as he walks alongside Kageyama. Kageyama shrugs.

     "Most of our walk is on the sidewalk anyway."

     After a brief nod in response, Koshi keeps to himself. With his eyes shining, Kageyama looks thrilled by something as little as a walk outside, so Koshi feels no need to distract him with conversation. A handful of cars pass by them, some blaring music and others silent save for a low "vroom." Kageyama enjoys seeing people walking across the street and a few stray cats eyeing them. The little things of the walk Koshi forgot to appreciate, Kageyama adores in abundance.

     In Kageyama's humble opinion, they arrive at the flower shop far too soon. The open sign hangs on the door and the lights shine inside. Kageyama takes that to mean he can walk inside despite not seeing anyone from the window's view.

     The bells on the door jingle, so the owner walks out from a back room, face mostly bland despite greeting customers.

     "Hello, Sugawara-san, Kageyama-kun."

     "Akaashi! Been awhile. Were you about to close shop for the night?" Koshi asks cheerfully, approaching his friend with a wide smile.

     Akaashi sighs.

     "You know my hours already, Sugawara-san. I don't close for another hour."

     Koshi smiles and winks.

     "Aw, you're not willing to stay open later? Not even for me?"

     "I can't. I have other plans for the night. I can help you for the hour, in the meantime. Have anything in mind?"

     "Yes! Yes, I do! As a matter of fact, some absolute delinquents have been stealing my beautiful forget-me-nots! Really, I spend all this time growing them, and some awful kids turn up to ruin my hard work. It's-it's offensive! Akaashi, it's the worst. Can't you agree?"

     Akaashi's eyes do perk at mention of flower-stealing.

     "I can understand the frustration."

     Kageyama listens to Koshi ramble about his garden and woes for less than ten seconds before leaving to roam around the shop. As far as Kageyama understands, they only came for more of the same flowers; they should be able to finish the task quickly. Kageyama wants to explore more before he would have to walk back home, so he has no time to listen to Koshi.

     Forget-me-nots belonged in more shady areas, so he found a large group of flowers beside them in the dimmer part of the store. Even with sunglasses, Kageyama did enjoy less intense lights. With someone as enthusiastic about flowers as Koshi as his caretaker, Kageyama already knew most of the plants in the store. The air had a soft and meadowy fragrance, and Kageyama just wanted to reach in and pluck a flower for himself, though that would make him no better than the boy who stole from Koshi’s garden.

     The thought gives some reassurance. Pluck some forget-me-nots, steal them away, and Kageyama will be that much more alike to the thieving idiot.

     "Little Bat! Hello, Tobio!" Koshi exclaims with his mouth near Kageyama's ear. "You have a goofy smile on your face holding that flower. Do you want it?" Koshi asks.

     "U-uh!" Kageyama grunts and scrunches his eyes to think. Instead of hovering over the forget-me-nots, Kageyama moved his hand without thought over the chrysanthemums. Large, attractive, and decorative. Kageyama likes the flower's shape a lot, knows it would catch the eyes of anyone looking.

     "I do," Kageyama answers after his long moment of consideration.

     "They're a bit big as it is now for our garden though. I can't buy it as is," Koshi explains, a finger on his lips while he thinks of how to carry the new forget-me-nots and any chrysanthemums.

     "We have various seed colors in stock, if need be," Akaashi notes.

     "Ooh, yes! Seeds would be perfect. We can grow some flowers together, Tobio!"

     "Yeah, that would be nice. I, uh, I like yellow. Do you have that color?"

     Akaashi nods.

     "I should have a few packs of seeds available for them in yellow. Yellow tends to be very vibrant, but it compliments the yellow center of the forget-me-nots. Does that sound alright?"

      "Sounds perfect!" Koshi replies. "And while we're getting seeds, what flower screams danger? I want to let those thieves know not to come back to our garden again."

     Akaashi almost laughs at Koshi's enthusiasm, but instead he offers a small and kind smile.

     "Rhododendrons, perhaps. We have seeds for redder shades of them in stock."

     "Perfect!" Koshi exclaims with glee as he follows Akaashi to pick out packets of seeds.

     Kageyama remains alone again with the flowers, and sighs. Yellow chrysanthemums. Such a bright color, but it fits, in his head. Yellow Chrysanthemums.

~•~

     _“Only two more hours,”_ he thinks. _“Only two more hours till the sun sets.”_

     Kageyama tasted freedom the night before, and he wants to have it again. Though sleep is a foreign concept to his body, he spent much of the sun-hours resting after spending all night gardening with Koshi. The walk back to their home was spent with Kageyama carrying most of the forget-me-nots and Koshi carrying only a few and some packs of seeds. Digging, rerooting, watering, weeding, feeding, consumed his night, and they had not even opened the seeds yet.

     Though rest on occasion feels nice, Kageyama craves going back out, even if only to do more yard work. Kageyama craves so much more.

     Kageyama stares at the ceiling while waiting impatiently for the sun to hide behind the horizon. The nighttime offers little distractions from the heavy boredom that weighs on him all day long, but at least it offers the possibility of drawing the curtains a little, or stepping outside to breathe in a little bit of fresh air. As long as nobody sees him, or tries to interact with him, he will be fine.

     Kageyama’s life has always been like this; he and Koushi are always hiding behind impossibly thick walls, always alert, always waiting for something bad enough to make them pack up and run away. They trust very few vampires, and, of course, no humans. That leaves almost no room for friendships, and while Kageyama loves Koshi dearly, he’d be lying to himself if he said that he does not want somebody else to talk to every once in a while. So, eternal days pile up into years and years of fear, distrust, and extreme boredom. Kageyama knows that sixty-three years is a small bit of time by how often Koshi teases him, but time drags on for centuries when every minute is the same.

     Ways to end his boredom plague his mind while he stares up at the ceiling from the living room couch, running his tongue across his teeth to feel the sharp tips of his fangs.

     _“Only two more hours,”_ he thinks.

     And then, his thoughts are interrupted by a loud sound that’s starting to become familiar at this point: the sound of cheery laughter outside the window.

     Several voices accompany each other, but Kageyama pinpoints one laugh in particular that shoots him from his couch to the window. He hesitates for a moment, but another bout of laughter coming from the garden outside is enough to make him draw the curtain a little bit, just enough to be able to peek outside.

     He only gets to see a small figure swiftly jumping over the wooden fence before Koshi’s angry voice rings out behind him.

     “Hey, Tobio, what are you do-!?”

     “Koshi, look, there’s your flower thief!” Kageyama interrupts him before he can keep scolding him.

     “What!?”

     Forgetting all about his previous annoyance at the drawn back curtains, Koshi practically jumps to the window, pushing Kageyama aside to get a better look outside.

     “Oh, that little . . .” Koshi mumbles under his breath. He shoves Kageyama aside one more time when he tries to sneak another look outside the window, and then keeps grumbling to himself. “He better not touch my tomatoes!”

     “I’ll go tell him off,” Kageyama announces. But he hasn’t even taken a single step when Koshi’s hand closes around his wrist and pulls him back.

     “Are you insane!?” Koshi hisses at him, clearly bewildered. “The sun is still up out there!”

     “I’ll stay in the shadow! They won’t even see me!”

     “No way!” Koshi lets go of the curtain, letting it fall heavily over the window again. “You know just as well as I do how much of a _bad_ idea it is to go outside during the day.”

     Kageyama unintentionally flinches at Koshi’s words, and then breaks himself free from his grip.

     “Fine,” he mumbles, defeated. “But I won’t go buy any more flowers for you this time!”

     Kageyama turns around and stomps out of the room, leaving Koshi alone behind him. The sound of voices outside their window can no longer be heard, carried away by the wind as the sun still shines harshly outside.

~•~

     It hurts.

_They are laughing. Kageyama can hear them, but he can’t see them; not when his eyes are screwed shut, and his teeth are clenched as they are. His legs threaten to give out. They tremble and shake, and soon he won’t be able to stand._

     It hurts so bad.

     _The kids keep laughing at him, and it’s the cruelest sound he has ever heard._

Why are they laughing?

     It hurts. So, so bad.

     _“Whoa, look at that!” one of them exclaims. Kageyama can’t see which one._

_“What’s that?” another voice reaches him, muffled, sounding like it belongs so someone who was far, far away from him._

_His legs finally give out, and he tumbles down, falling to his knees. A strangled cry escapes his lips, and falls to the ground, unheard, ignored. Kageyama’s nails dig into his own arms, hard enough to draw blood. Another strangled cry._

It hurts.

     _They stop laughing. There’s finally silence now. Kageyama breaks it with a pitiful sob._

     It _burns_.

     _“He’s-he’s burning!”_

_Kageyama looks up, cracks his eyes open just enough to catch sight of the kids' terrified looks._

Why are they so scared?

_“He’s . . .”_

     Am I actually . . .

     _“A vampire!”_

      . . .that scary?

     _They are not laughing anymore. They are screaming. They are screaming, and crying, and the sun still burns cruelly, mercilessly on his skin. Kageyama tries to speak, tries to scream, tries to breathe, but he can’t._

_“Tobio!”_

_Kageyama falls forward, his face slamming to the ground. He hears his name again, and again, closer every time._

_“Koshi . . .” Kageyama manages to choke out when he hears the footsteps approaching. "Don’t come, you’ll . . . you’ll burn too . . ."_

_But Koshi is already crouching in front of him, hissing in pain. Kageyama opens his eyes, and through his blurry sight he can see Koshi’s hands, burning, sizzling a cruel, merciless red._

_“Tobio!”_

_Koshi picks him up in both arms. He struggles to stand up under the relentless attack of the sunlight, fighting his trembling legs and burning skin to carry both him and Kageyama to the nearest shadow he can find._

_The kids keep screaming, pointing at them, looking at them with eyes full of terror._

_“There’s another one!”_

_“Another vampire!”_

_Kageyama can feel Koshi’s anger. He can feel it surrounding him, protecting him, and all he can do is be thankful that Koshi directs it away from him._

_His skin has stopped burning. When he opens his eyes once again, the look of sheer, pure blood-thirst that he sees in Koshi’s face chills him to the bone. It seems to work the same way for the other kids, who immediately run away, squealing like little pigs._

_“Koshi . . .”_

_“Tobio!” When Koshi turns around at the sound of Kageyama’s voice, almost all the anger in his eyes has been replaced with concern._

_Almost._

_“What the hell were you doing!?” he screams, making Kageyama flinch. Koshi has never screamed at him. “I told you a thousand times not to come out during the day! What were you doing!?”_

_“I’m sorry,” Kageyama's voice is tinted with pain. He wants to look at Koshi and find him smiling like he always does, but he knows that instead, he will find angry eyes and red, burned skin. “They asked me if I wanted to play with them . . . I wanted to play with them . . .”_

_Suddenly, Koshi pulls his small body into his arms and hugs him close. Their skin hurts against the fabric of each other’s clothes, but neither of them cares. Kageyama throws his arms over Koshi’s neck, and buries his face into his shoulder. Kageyama can feel Koshi’s body trembling and shaking with silent sobs._

_“Koshi . . .” Kageyama mumbles, his voice breaking into a sob of his own. “I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”_

_“Humans are dangerous, Tobio,” Koshi whispers, barely hard enough for Kageyama to hear. “They are cruel, so cruel.”_

_“Crueler than the sun?”_

_For some reason, Kageyama’s words make Koshi laugh. But it’s not the gentle, tinkling sound that Kageyama is used to hear, the one he likes so much: this laugh is low, and bitter._

_“Definitely.”_

~•~

     Hinata stretches his arms over his head, and drops them when he hears the satisfying sound of his bones cracking into place. He looks around the empty street, barely illuminated by the dim streetlights, and smiles with delight when the soft nightly breeze softly ruffles his hair.

     “Man, practice was rough today!” he hears Nishinoya’s whining behind him, followed by Tanaka’s agreeing grunt, but Hinata pays it no mind. Now that it has come into sight, his eyes are trained on the abandoned house with the pretty garden that rests barely a couple meters ahead.

     “Hey, Hinata!” Hinata turns around at the sound of Nishinoya calling his name, just as they reach the house. “Where’s your bike? I just noticed, it’s been a while since I last saw it.”

     “Ah, it’s getting repaired,” Hinata explains. “It suffered a little accident while I was trying to teach my sister how to ride a bike.”

     “It’s that why you’ve been walking home with us?” Tanaka asks with a teasing smile. “Are you afraid to walk home all by yourself?”

     “T-that’s not-!” Hinata stammers, cheeks beginning to turn pink with embarrassment, but Nishinoya interrupts him.

     “Yeah, he’s probably scared of the vampires who live in that house,” he says, pointing at the house behind them with his thumb.

     “Shut up, Noya-san!” Tanaka exclaims, his face losing all traces of his previous teasing smile in favor of a look of total fright. “It’s not funny!”

     Nishinoya’s booming laughter echoes around the empty street. Hinata’s eyes fall back on the garden of the dark house behind him, just as his teammates begin to walk down the sidewalk again.

     “Hinata! Are you coming or not?” Tanaka calls out, stopping a few meters in front of him.

     “You guys go ahead!” Hinata answers. “I’m gonna pick some flowers for my mom!”

     “Be careful, then! Don’t let the vampires get you!” Nishinoya yells out before breaking into a sprint, Tanaka following after him with whiny exclamations about his _“unfunny fucking jokes!”_

     Hinata chuckles as he watches them dissappear around the corner. The street seems oddly quiet without his teammates’ loud voices. He approaches the fence and leans over it to look at the dozens of different flowers that adorn the garden, stopping for a moment to appreciate the sweet smell that waves over to him when the wind blows softly amongst them.

     A particular bush of tiny, blue flowers catches his eye, and Hinata recognizes them as the flowers he picked a couple days ago. He considers picking up some more, since the last bunch he took home ended up looking beautiful in his mother’s garden, but then he notices how big the bush looks.

     _“That’s weird,”_ he thinks. _“I picked a whole lot of them last time. They couldn’t have grown back so fast . . .”_

     He leans a little bit further to take a better look at the flowers.

     “Could it be . . .?” he mumbles to himself.

     Suddenly, the fence gives out underneath him, and the next thing he knows, he’s getting dangerously close to the ground.

~•~

     A loud cracking noise reaches Kageyama from the front yard, followed by the loud noise of something big hitting the ground. He stops dead in his tracks on the way to his bedroom, pricking up his ears. He hears a soft grunt that puts a deep frown on his face.

     “Koshi?” he calls out, knowing that it is not possible for him to be the cause of the ruckus. Koshi is inside the house, back in his room, the furthest one from the front yard. Still, Kageyama waits for an answer, and then heads to the window when he gets none.

     Carefully, he pulls back the curtains, and gasps out loud when he catches sight of an unmistakable shock of orange hair, vibrant against the dark soil of the garden.

     Kageyama sprints to the front door, and pulls it open as fast as he can. The person sprawled across the ground over the remains of the fence slowly looks up, rubbing his forehead with a grimace of pain, and Kageyama finally gets to have a proper look at the owner of the cheery, tinkling laugh that’s been tormenting him for almost a week now: short stature, wide brown eyes, and unruly locks of bright orange hair, now freshly adorned with all sorts of petals and leaves.

     And suddenly, a bright smile that looks like it could easily outshine the sun.

    Except, Kageyama thinks, this one doesn’t burn at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dontsaycrazy: Hey, there! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Grey and I have been working on this idea and planning out the plot for a looooong time, so we are both very, very proud of this story, and immensely excited to finally be able to post it. Please let us know what you think, cause your feedback is super important to us as writers! ♥♥♥
> 
> Also, I'm at allen-walkers on Tumblr, if you want to come talk to me!
> 
> Grey: Really, this started because I told her to write it. Sadly, this story is also my baby, and I'm possessive. She does 99% of the work. I'm a horrible cowriter. Give everything to her; she's an angel and lightning writer!
> 
> I JUST CANT BELIEVE IT IS FINALLY HERE! I BROUGHT THIS STORY UP IN LIKE APRIL. ITS BEEN NEARLY A YEAR! I HOPE YOU GUYS ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!  
> Thanks so much for joining us!


	2. Chapter 2

     Neither of them moves, with Kageyama being blinded by a total stranger’s smile, and Hinata being shocked into a dumb, awkward grin by the fact that the house he’s been stealing flowers from turned out to be, in fact, inhabited.

     Kageyama is the first one to break the silence, once he recovers from Hinata’s paralyzing smile.

     “What the hell are you doing?”

     Kageyama’s words seem to get Hinata moving again, as he scrambles to his feet as fast as possible. He tries his best to wipe the remains of leaves, crushed flowers, and dirt from his clothes, completely ignoring the mess that’s become of his hair.

     “I-I-I’m sorry!” he stammers, getting progressively more nervous with each second he spends under Kageyama’s judging glare. “I didn’t know people lived here!”

     “And what does that have to do with you destroying our fence!?” Kageyama exclaims.

     “It was an accident!” Hinata defends, his cheeks reddening slightly. “I just wanted to look at those flowers and-”

     “The flowers that _you_ keep stealing?” Kageyama interrupts him accusingly, crossing his arms over his chest.

     Hinata can feel his cheeks heating up even more at the righteous accusation, and Kageyama can’t help but to notice that the new color of his cheeks matches the petals stuck in his hair.

     “I’m sorry, I really didn’t know that somebody lived here!” Hinata rushes to explain himself, making wild hand gestures to support his words. The boy makes an amusing picture, really, Kageyama thinks. “I would’ve never taken those flowers if I knew they belonged to someone!”

     Kageyama opens his mouth to speak, and then cuts himself short when a familiar voice reaches him from inside the house.

     “Tobio?” Koshi calls out from somewhere in the living room. “What happened? I heard weird noises!”

     Both Hinata and Kageyama snap their necks in the direction of the house, one in surprise, and the other one in complete and utter fear.

     “Hide!” Kageyama hisses, turning his head back towards Hinata.

     “Huh?” Hinata lets out, somehow managing to look even dumber than before.

     “I said hide!”

     Kageyama runs to Hinata and hurriedly pushes him towards Koshi’s tomatoes, completely ignoring the boy’s complaints.

     “What are you-ack!” Hinata is interrupted by Kageyama pushing him down to crouch behind the tomatoes. He shoots Kageyama a look that ranges between bewildered and confused, brushing his hair against the plants in the process, and getting even more leaves tangled in it.

     “Don’t move!” Kageyama warns, just before Koshi’s footsteps can be heard coming out of the house.

     “Tobio, why aren’t you ans-what the hell happened to our fence!?”

     Kageyama eyes dart from Koshi’s face, to Hinata’s confused look, then to the broken fence, and finally, back to Koshi’s face.

     “It was a raccoon!” he suddenly shouts the first thing that comes to his mind. Koshi’s eyebrows shoot up to his forehead at Kageyama’s strange response, and Kageyama scrambles to try and fix his terrible lie. “A pack of raccoons! Really wild raccoons! You should’ve seen it, Koshi, they were crazy!”

     Kageyama can hear Hinata snort and try to stifle his laughter underneath him. He turns to glare a silent warning at him before Koshi’s doubtful voice earns his attention back.

     “I didn’t hear any raccoons, though.”

     “Oh, they were really silent,” Kageyama hurries to respond, eliciting more badly concealed laughter from Hinata. Kageyama discreetly kicks him on the shin before continuing, ignoring the hushed yelp that comes from Hinata. “Crazy and wild, but silent.”

     Koshi stares blankly at him for what feel like ages; so long, that Kageyama begins to consider offering the dumb, snickering boy crouching at his feet as a sacrifice to soothe his guardian’s anger. Suddenly, Koshi throws his hands up in defeat.

     “Ok, you know what, I’ll deal with this later. Right now, I _really_ want to go back to sweet, _sweet_ Mr. Darcy, and forget _all_ about wild raccoons and high school students vandalizing my garden,” he explains, eyes wider and scarier than usual. He smoothly turns around to head back into the house, and Kageyama cautiously watches him go without moving a muscle. “This garden will be the death of me, I swear . . .” Kageyama hears Koshi mumble before he disappears inside, slamming the door behind himself.

     Kageyama lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in, and lets his shoulders fall with relief. But his peace is soon murdered by a teasing voice coming from the ground next to his feet.

     “A pack of wild raccoons? Seriously?”

     Kageyama looks down at Hinata, who’s staring at him with a mocking expression on his face that contrasts outrageously with the ridiculous amount of leaves and petals he sports in his head.

     “Sh-shut up, this is your entire fault!” Kageyama exclaims, and then lowers his voice when he remembers that Koshi is still inside the house. “Now leave.”

     “No way!” Hinata finally stands up, more dirt falling from the front of his shirt. “I’m gonna stay, and help you fix your fence.”

     “What? No!” Kageyama hisses, looking frantically at the window to check if Koshi is there. “You need to leave now before Koshi sees you!”

     “What’s wrong with him seeing me?” Hinata asks, cocking his head to the side in confusion. “I’ll apologize to him as well. He sounded like he was about to have an aneurism.”

      “No, you don’t understand, you have to leave!”

     Kageyama presses his hands against Hinata’s back, pushing him towards the hole in the fence despite the other’s loud protests. Unable to fight Kageyama’s strong arms with his small frame, Hinata stumbles into the sidewalk and turns around to shoot him an offended glare.

     “Fine, I’ll leave!” he finally agrees, and Kageyama nearly lets out a sigh of relief. “But I’ll come back and help you fix this, I promise!”

     “I don’t want, or need you to do that, you dumbass!”

     “Wow, you’re really rude!”

     “Maybe, but I’m not the one who goes around destroying people’s fences!”

     “I told you I’d fix it!” Hinata exclaims, his cheeks reddening again.

     “Whatever, just go away.”

     Kageyama turns around and heads towards the front door, praying that his dismissive attitude is enough to make the loud boy leave. He only stops walking once he hears Hinata’s footsteps walking away, and turns to watch him disappear down the street. Finally, he gives the shattered fence another pitiful look, and heaves a sigh before entering the house.

~•~

     “I’m home,” Hinata calls out as soon as he steps inside his house, closing the door behind him. He stops to take off his shoes at the entrance before making his way to his bedroom, thinking of making a stop at the kitchen to eat the first thing he can find. Accidentally destroying people’s fences can be very tiring, apparently.

     Hinata stops dead in his tracks when he passes by the small mirror that hangs on the right side of the hallway. He blinks a couple times at his reflection, astounded by the ridiculous amount of leaves and broken flowers that are tangled in his hair. Hinata watches as his cheeks slowly turn a deep shade of pink for what feels like the umpteenth time that night.

     “I can’t believe I talked to that guy with my hair like this!” he mumbles to himself, pressing his hands against his face in utter embarrassment. “And right after I broke his fence, too . . .”

     With his face covered, Hinata can’t see his little sister peeking at him from the end of the hallway, but he can hear her shrill voice when she excitedly runs to tell their mother about her big brother’s new ability to grow flowers on his hair.

~•~

     “This is _boring_ ,” Kageyama declares, slamming the book shut and lowering it to his lap. “Why doesn’t she just marry the guy?”

     “Simple-minded as always, Tobio,” Koshi says from his spot on the couch. “Elizabeth’s heart is a complicated one.”

     “It sure is,” Kageyama scoffs, eyeing the old book’s front cover with disdain. “ _Pride and Prejudice_ ,” he reads out loud, and then scoffs again. “No shit, pal!”

     “Okay, you know what? You don’t deserve Jane Austen’s magnificence.” Koshi reaches out to rip the book from Kageyama’s hands with a look of feigned indignation.

     “You only like that book because you have a weird crush on this Darcy guy.”

     “ _Everyone_ has a crush on Mr. Darcy, Tobio!” Koshi jumps to defend himself. He hugs the book against his chest, almost like it was his child and he was defending it from the young vampire’s sarcastic remarks.

     “Yeah, including Elizabeth, _and she still won’t marry the guy_!”

     Koshi glares momentarily at him, still holding the book like Kageyama is planning to steal it from him and burn it in the fireplace. Then he stands up, and walks over to the cluttered bookshelf to place it back where it belongs.

     “If you hate my girl Jane so much, why don’t you read something more modern?” Koshi slides his index finger along the spines of dozens of books, mumbling their titles under his breath in search of the appropriate one. “How about Harry Potter?” he suggests, taking the relatively new book from the shelf. “You’d love Harry Potter!”

     Kageyama scrunches up his nose, looking at the book Koshi is offering him with a great amount of disinterest.

     “You know I don’t like modern things.”

     “Jesus, Tobio! You’re not even a hundred years old, you’re _way_ too young to start behaving like an old man!”

     “Oh, excuse me, King Tutankhamun, not all of us had the privilege to _witness the freaking genesis_!” Kageyama exclaims with an exaggeratingly sarcastic tone, standing up from the couch and placing his open hands on the sides of his head in a mocking gesture.

     “Heh, that was a good one,” Koshi concedes, chuckling appreciatively. Then, he crosses his arms over his chest and raises his nose in a defensive stance. “Still, let me remind you that five hundred years is nowhere near old, thank you very much!”

     “Five hundred and sixty four,” Kageyama corrects him.

     “Oh, Tobio, only tiny little baby bats like you take decades into consideration,” Koshi teases, leaning forward to pinch one of Kageyama’s cheeks. Kageyama swats him away with annoyance, and Koshi’s smile grows even wider. “Your entire age is in decades, after all!”

     Kageyama glares at him, and stammers for a while in search of a smart answer. When he finds none, he throws himself back into the couch, clearly defeated. Koshi bursts out laughing at his tiny tantrum, and then tries to hand him the book to him one more time.

     “But seriously, give Harry Potter a chance. You might end up loving it!”

     “Get me something from _at least_ the sixties, and we’ll talk,” Kageyama grumbles, still a little mad from his earlier defeat.

     “Wow, you’re such a hipster,” Koshi says, slowly shaking his head in disbelief. He turns to put the book back on its shelf, and then a thought freezes him in place for a moment. He turns to stare at Kageyama with wide eyes, and a shocked expression. “Oh, my God, Tobio!”

     “What!?” Kageyama sits up on the couch, alarmed by Koshi’s sudden change of behavior.

     “You were born in the fifties!”

     “Yes . . .?”

     “That makes you an _actual_ hipster!”

     Kageyama blinks a couple times in disbelief, letting Koshi’s words sink in, before rolling his eyes and lying back down on the couch.

     “Koshi, please don’t-”

     “Tiny little-” Koshi starts, scrambling to get on the couch with him.

     “Don’t!” Kageyama warns, scooting away from him until his back hits the armrest.

     “-baby-” Koshi keeps going, getting closer and closer to Kageyama’s face.

     “Koshi, stop!”

     “-hipster bat!”

     They stare wordlessly at each other for a few moments, Koshi’s face twisted into a gigantic grin, and Kageyama blinking slowly with a blank expression.

     “Ok, I’m gonna go stand under the sun for a while till I forget what you just said,” Kageyama finally breaks the silence, sliding off the couch and away from Koshi.

     “Hey, don’t be like that!” Koshi calls after him, without moving from the couch. “I’ve taken care of you your whole life, I get to make fun of you every once in a while!”

     “Oh, I thought sixty years was _such_ a short time, it mustn’t have been so horrible to take care of me!” Kageyama retaliates from the doorway.

     “Not when you have to change tiny bat diapers!”

     “We don’t even-! Argh, forget it!”

     Kageyama leaves the living room to head to his bedroom, where the heat of the afternoon is a bit more bearable. He hears Koshi stand up and walk behind him, and he does his best to ignore him.

     “Tobio,” he calls him once they reach his bedroom.

     “What?” Kageyama grumbles in response after throwing himself on his bed.

     “I’m going out tonight,” Koshi says from the doorway, and Kageyama shoots him a surprised look. “Akaashi needs help with something at the store, and I offered to help him. It may take a while. Will you be alright by yourself?”

     “Of course I will,” Kageyama says with a scowl. Then he lets a tiny smile play on his lips when an amusing thought pops in his mind. “Will _you_ be okay, old man? You sure you don’t need help carrying anything or crossing the street?”

     “Oh, I will be fine!” Koshi replies with a smile, waving his hand in front of his face. He turns around to leave, and Kageyama is beginning to feel triumphant about his witty comment, when Koshi’s voice drifts back into his room. “I’ll remember to bring some diapers for you!”

     Kageyama sits up on his bed, dumbfounded by Koshi’s response. It takes him a while to find an appropriate comeback, but once he does, he nearly yells it at the top of his lungs.

     “Only if you don’t forget them, old man!”

     He lies back down on the bed, smiling proudly to himself after he hears Koshi’s small chuckle from the living room. 

~•~

     Everyone in the team can agree on one thing, as they watch Hinata give a hurried goodbye, run out of the locker room (nearly slamming into Yamaguchi and Tsukishima in the process), run to his bike, and ride away as fast as his legs allow him: if Hinata’s unusual efficiency while cleaning the gym that day, and that sudden burst of energy that seemed to propel him out of the room and away from the school meant something, then the boy _really_ had somewhere he needed to be.

     “I’ve never seen Hinata in such a hurry,” Daichi observes. Everyone in the room slowly resumes their activities, which they had relegated in order to observe their teammate’s weird behavior.

     “Shouyou’s been acting strange lately,” Nishinoya comments, pulling his shirt off and throwing it aside. He casts a mischievous glance in Tanaka’s direction, and smirks a little. “Could it be . . .?”

     “No vampires jokes, Noya-san!” Tanaka warns, pointing an accusing finger to his friend’s chest. Nishinoya raises his hands with a look of feigned innocence, but Tanaka can clearly see the evil smirk he is trying so hard to hide.

     “Bro, I’m just worried about Shouyou! What if he’s fallen in love with the vampire that lives in that weird house?”

     “V-vampires . . .?” Asahi asks uncertainly from his corner of the room, and gets an enthusiastic nod from Nishinoya in response.

     “Maybe they saw him stealing their flowers, and now they’re forcing him to give them blood in return!” Nishinoya grabs his face in both hands, and widens his eyes in an expression of feigned worry that is somehow convincing enough to make both Tanaka and Asahi gulp loudly.

     “Sh-shut up, there are no vampires in that damned house!” Tanaka says, but the look in his face tells Nishinoya that his friend isn’t fully convinced of what he’s saying.

     “Are we talking about that weird old house? The one Hinata sometimes takes flowers from?” Daichi asks after closing his locker, looking at Nishinoya with a tiny scowl. Nishinoya nods his head, and Daichi rolls his eyes. “That house is obviously abandoned, stop scaring Tanaka and Asahi.”

     “No, Daichi-san, I’m telling you!” Nishinoya exclaims over Tanaka’s obviously fake claims about how he isn’t scared at all. “There are vampires in that house, I’m sure!”

     “Asahi is the one who looks like a vampire right now,” Ennoshita points out, barely holding back his laughter. “You’ve scared the color out of him, Nishinoya!”

     “E-eh!?” comes Asahi’s eloquent response, eliciting loud bouts of laughter from his teammates.

     Daichi laughs softly as well, before heading out the locker room with a shouted goodbye. As he leaves behind the laughter and teasing remarks about fake vampires and cowardly aces, Daichi makes a mental note to talk to Hinata the next morning. Not because he fears that his kouhai’s young life will be ended by flower-loving vampires, like Nishinoya so eloquently suggested, but because watching a guy like Hinata put away a volleyball net in less than a minute would plant the seed of worry in any responsible captain’s heart.

~•~

     Kageyama can hear Koshi shuffling around in his bedroom from his usual spot on the living room couch, and figures his guardian must be getting ready to leave. The sun is about to set, after all, and Akaashi is about to open his shop. Kageyama always found the concept of a flower shop being open only during the nighttime quite funny, but Akaashi’s business seems to be successful enough for him to live a comfortable life.

     _“It’s not like vampires need much to be comfortable, anyway,”_ he thinks, absently running his tongue across his pointed teeth like he does every time he’s deep in thought. _“Well, it’s not like we can actually live a comfortable life, really . . .”_

     A foreign, chirring sound outside the window dissipates his thoughts, but he decides to ignore it. The sound stops as quickly as it started, only to be replaced by the sound of several things falling onto the sidewalk. This makes Kageyama’s brows knit together; the strange combination of sounds produces enough curiosity for him to head to the window, and carefully pull back the curtain no more than a couple inches.

     The first thing he sees is a bike, propped precariously against the intact part of the wooden fence. The next thing his eyes land on makes his mind enter full-on panic mode.

     Right in front of him, on the sidewalk in front of the broken section of the fence, there’s a familiar mop of orange hair, this time free of leaves. Hinata is crouched down, picking up a collection of items scattered on the ground, and trying to hold them all at the same time: a hammer, wooden planks, nails . . .

     “That god damned idiot . . .” Kageyama mumbles to himself, just as a couple planks fall from Hinata’s arms, throwing the boy into momentary panic.

     Once he has picked them back up, Hinata distractedly looks up. _Right at him._

     Kageyama instantly lets the curtain fall back to cover the window, rushing to hide behind it. But it’s too late; they made eye contact before he could react. Kageyama knows for a fact that Hinata’s brown eyes locked with his, and he could swear he saw the glint of recognition in his face just a fraction of a second before he could drop the curtain.

     The damage is done.

     Still, Kageyama slowly, _slowly_ , moves to pull the curtain back, and look outside one more time. He inwardly prays for the other boy to be no more than a figment of his imagination, a trick of the light, or a heat-induced hallucination.

     But no. When Kageyama peeks outside, not only does he see that Hinata is still outside, but that he’s also crossing the garden, treading carefully through Koshi’s flowers _towards him_.

     “God dang it!” Kageyama hisses under his breath, once again hurrying to hide behind the curtain. He waits, holding his breath, for a couple moments that feel eternal. Then, just as he’s beginning to consider peeking out the window one more time to see if the boy is still there, a sharp knock on the glass nearly startles him out of his skin. “Jesus freaking-!”

     Kageyama thrusts the curtains back to find Hinata staring at him from the other side of the window. His face instantly scrunches up into a glare, to which Hinata responds with a bright smile.

     _“There it is again,”_ Kageyama thinks, feeling his scowl deepening even more, and trying to ignore the fleeting thought that assures him that if his heart could beat, it would have definitely skipped a beat right then. _“That dumb smile of his. What an absolute dumbass, who does he think he is?”_

     His mental rambling is interrupted by another knock on the window, only this time, Hinata follows it with a string of hand gestures that Kageyama can’t even hope to comprehend.

     “Huh!?” is all Kageyama can manage in response, shaking his head and raising his hands to let Hinata know that he has no idea what he wants from him.

     Hinata rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically, earning another deadly glare from the other side of the glass. His eyes lock with Kageyama’s once again, and then he points at his lips with both index fingers. He nods once, and then begins to exaggeratingly mouth something.

     Kageyama’s eyebrows rest together just above the bridge of his nose while he tries to decipher what Hinata is trying to tell him.

     “ _Open the window?_ ” Kageyama furiously shakes his head, earning a disappointed look from Hinata. “No way!”

     _“Why?”_ Hinata mouths, wide-eyed. Kageyama just lets the drapes fall to hide his face, and turns around to leave.

     He’s about to exit the room when another knock on the glass makes him stop dead in his tracks. Kageyama lets out a loud, tiresome groan, and then snatches the curtains back one more time.

     Hinata is, much to his dismay, still standing there outside his window. But this time, he’s sporting what seems to be a badly concealed pout. His brown eyes are wide under his childish frown, and Kageyama wonders for a moment if this could be the first “puppy face” he gets to see.

     Whatever it is, it turns out to be weirdly effective, he notices with annoyance, because a few seconds later he’s moving to open the window (not without cursing the boy a thousand times under his breath while he does it).

     Hinata greets him with a wide smile and a chirpy _“Hey!”_ once the window is opened, but Kageyama’s expression of annoyance and distrust doesn’t change.

     “What are you doing here?”

     “I told you I’d come to fix your fence,” Hinata explains, still smiling brightly.

     “And I told you I don’t want you to!”

     Hinata’s smile finally disappears, only to be replaced by a smaller, tamer version of his earlier pout.

     “Aw, come on! I don’t see what the big deal is with me being here!”

     “You don’t get it! I’m not supposed to-!” Kageyama cuts himself short, realizing just in time that he was about to reveal something he shouldn’t.

 _I'm not supposed to interact with humans_.

Hinata watches Kageyama expectantly, waiting for him to keep talking. When he doesn’t, he crosses his arms over his chest in a defiant gesture, giving Kageyama a look of disdain.

     “Whatever. I don’t care if you want me to or not, I’m still gonna fix your fence because my mother raised me right!”

     “Oh yeah? She should’ve taught you not to go around destroying people’s fences in the first place!”

     “Hey, don’t talk badly about my mother!” Hinata exclaims, pointing an accusing finger at Kageyama’s chest.

     “I wasn’t-!” Kageyama hurries to defend himself, but stops shortly afterwards when Koshi calls his name from his bedroom. He looks back over his shoulder in the direction of his guardian’s voice, and then quickly turns back on Hinata’s direction. “You’re not gonna give up on this, are you?” he asks in a hushed voice. Hinata shakes his head in response, and Kageyama heaves a loud sigh. “Then wait until the sun sets, and we’ll fix the stupid fence. Now leave.”

     He doesn’t wait for Hinata’s answer before slamming the window shut, letting the curtains fall back to cover it.

     “I’m coming,” he calls back in Koshi’s direction, casting a hesitant glance over his shoulder in the window’s direction before heading to Koshi’s bedroom.

~•~

     Just as expected, Hinata is out there waiting for him when Kageyama steps into the garden a few minutes after Koshi leaves. He is sitting on the edge of the sidewalk right next to his bike, with his elbows on his knees, and his head resting on his hands. The materials he had brought earlier sit on a pile on the sidewalk, almost looking like a silent companion to the visibly bored boy.

     “Oi,” Kageyama calls out, making his way over to him. Hinata turns to look at him and immediately stands up, clearly excited to finally do something other than wait. “Did Koshi see you?” Kageyama asks as soon as he’s standing next to Hinata.

     “The pretty guy with the light hair?” Kageyama nods. “I saw him leaving just as I turned the corner. I don’t think he saw me.”

     “Good.” Without another word, Kageyama bends down to pick up the hammer, and some wood planks. “Now let’s get this over with so I don’t have to keep seeing your dumbass face.”

     “Hey!” Hinata whines, but still leans over to grab a bunch of nails and some more planks.

     They work in relative silence, only interrupted by the occasional joke by Hinata (that Kageyama does his best to ignore, unwilling to reward the boy’s evident stupidity with so much as a chuckle), or a request for help or more nails by either of them. Kageyama focuses on talking as little as possible, to avoid risking the other catching sight of his long, sharp fangs. He is aware that the darkness of the night, barely illuminated by a single lamp post on the opposite sidewalk, is of help to hide them, but Hinata has never been so physically close to him, and talking is not worth the risk.

     Since Kageyama has never even held a hammer in his hand, he needs a great deal of help from Hinata, who is, surprisingly, quite good at the task at hand.

     “I used to help my dad around a lot,” he explains, expertly taking out a bent nail from one of the busted planks of the fence. “He taught me how to do this sort of things when I was a kid.”

     As it turns out, Kageyama is nowhere near as efficient as Hinata, so he is relegated to the task of holding the new planks in place, and handing out nails to Hinata, who in turn pushes them into place with a couple of expert hits of his hammer.

     The hours pass almost without them realizing, until Kageyama remembers that Koshi won’t be out forever, and will eventually return home.

     “We’re almost done,” Hinata reassures him when Kageyama voices his thoughts. “There’s only one more plank left.”

     Once said plank is securely nailed in place, they both stand back to appreciate their work. The fence would look like new, if it weren’t for the fact that the new planks still haven’t been painted. Still, they did a great job, and they observe it proudly for a while.

     Kageyama’s soft feeling of productiveness is suddenly dissipated when he remembers that Koshi will be there any minute.

     “You need to leave now!” he exclaims, startling Hinata. “Koshi’s coming home soon!”

     Without waiting for the boy to answer, Kageyama begins to push him out of the garden and towards his bike. Hinata shakes free of his grip, tired by now of being pushed around by the taller boy.

     “Alright, alright, I’m leaving!” He huffs, offended, gripping the handles of his bike. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

     “What? What for? The fence is already fixed!” Kageyama points at the fence, confused and, once again, annoyed.

     “Well, we need to paint it!” Hinata explains, with an intangible _“duh”_ evident in his voice.

     “I’ll do it myself, you don’t need to come back!” Kageyama exclaims, getting more and more anxious with each passing second.

     “You? No way,” Hinata says with a dismissive snort. “If your skills with a brush are the same as with a hammer, and think we’d better leave it unpainted.”

     “Then we’ll leave it unpainted, now _go_!” Kageyama hisses, frantically shooing Hinata with his hands.

     “Fine, fine!” Hinata hops on his bike and begins to ride away. Kageyama is thankful that the boy is finally leaving, but the warm feeling of relief is quickly replaced with one of annoyance when Hinata turns his head back to assure him that he _will_ be back tomorrow.

     Kageyama groans and readies himself to shout the first offensive response that comes to mind, but decides against it when he hears Koshi arrive at the corner of the block.

     “Tobio,” Koshi greets him with surprise. “What are you doing outside?”

     “I was . . . fixing the fence,” Kageyama explains, pointing at the newly replaced wooden planks. Koshi’s entire face immediately lights up, and he moves to engulf the younger vampire in a hug.

     “Tobio, you’re wonderful!” he exclaims. Then he stills all of sudden, and pushes Kageyama away at arms length, holding him by the shoulders. He sniffs the air around him, and Kageyama’s entire body tenses when he remembers a fundamental detail the moment Koshi scrunches up his nose. “You smell of human.”

     “T-that’s-!” Kageyama stops, and stills himself before continuing. “That’s because I had to go to hardware store to get the materials.”

     “Mmmm,” Koshi hums in response, and Kageyama begins to panic, wondering if his lie was too obvious. But then his guardian’s face relaxes into a smile, and he lets go of his shoulders. “You could’ve asked me to buy those for you, since I had to go Akaashi’s. You know I don't like you going out by yourself.”

     “I didn’t want you to have to carry all those things from all the way down there,” Kageyama says. It isn’t really a lie, this time; he really wouldn’t have wanted to inconvenience his guardian that much. "And I wanted to surprise you."

     Koshi gives him an affectionate look, and then heads over to the fence to examine it closer.

     “You did a really good job,” he observes, brushing his fingers against the new wood. “I would’ve never imagined you could do this all by yourself.”

     “Yeah,” Kageyama mumbles nervously, scratching the back of his neck. "I guess I'm good with my hands."

     “You know what I should do?” Koshi starts excitedly, straightening his back to look at Kageyama. “I should plant those chrysanthemums we bought the other day!”

     “I’ll help you,” Kageyama offers, following Koshi, who has already begun to make his way into the house.

     “Aren’t you tired, after all that fence-fixing?”

     “Nah, I’m good.”

~•~

     Koshi’s voice suddenly breaks the comfortable silence they have fallen into. He's just finished covering the last one of the seeds when he speaks up, looking down at the ground.

     “Akaashi offered me a job at the store.”

     Kageyama looks up from the dirt he is evening out, and blinks a couple times in surprise. Koshi doesn’t meet his gaze, focusing instead on throwing dirt into the small hole he dug before.

     “And do you want to take it?” Kageyama asks cautiously.

     “I do! You know how much I love plants and stuff,” Koshi answers, gesturing at the newly seeded dirt in front of them. He finally looks up at Kageyama, and there’s a tiny, unsure smile on his face. “But I’m not sure if I want to leave you alone, you know?”

     “I’ll be fine,” Kageyama rushes to say.

     “You sure?” Koshi asks hesitantly. “Will you be okay by yourself?”

     Kageyama wants to tell him that _no, of course I won’t be okay. I will be bored as hell, and I will probably miss you a lot as well,_ but there’s no way in hell he would ever say that out loud. Besides, he knows that this is not the time to be selfish, not when Koshi has finally found something to occupy him, and something he enjoys at that.

     So he nods reassuringly instead, and tells Koshi that _yes, of course I’ll be okay, I’ve told you a thousand times that I’m not a baby anymore, I can take care of myself._

     Koshi merely rolls his eyes and shakes his head in response before returning to the task at hand, but Kageyama doesn’t miss the content smile that shines on his lips while he presses his hands carefully into the dirt to even it out.

~•~

    True to his word, Hinata does end up coming back the following night, just a few minutes after Koshi has left for work. In the basket of his bike, he carries two old paintbrushes, and a big can of yellow paint.

     “What’s wrong with it? It’s a pretty color!” he defends when he notices Kageyama’s scrunched up nose and unconvinced look. “I didn’t have any white paint at home, so I brought yellow to repaint the whole thing.”

     “The whole thing?” Kageyama repeats, already dreading the hours of work that await them.

     “Yeah! It will look super nice, I promise. It will bring out the color of the flowers even more.”

     That’s all it takes to convince Kageyama. That, and his absolute lack of will to keep dealing with Hinata’s seemingly unending energy, and loud excitement about _everything._

     They end up having to make a short trip to the hardware store (this time for real) in order to buy sandpaper to scrape away the old, peeling white paint that still covers most of the fence.

     That task alone takes all of their available work time for the night, and they haven’t even cracked open the yellow paint when it’s time for Hinata to leave. Kageyama grunts and complains when Hinata tells him that he will have to come back again the following night, but deep down, he knows it doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it should.

~•~

     The fence is painted and finished within two more nights. Hinata was right, Kageyama must admit: the fence _does_ look way nicer painted in yellow.

     “I told you it would look nicer in yellow!”

     “Shut up, dumbass!” Kageyama barks out, highly annoyed by the fact that Hinata has, unknowingly, just voiced what Kageyama was thinking.

     Hinata sticks his tongue out at him and then returns to looking at the fence with a satisfied smile. Both of them are silent for a while, admiring their hard work, until Hinata breaks the silence.

     “Well, I guess I’ll be going then.”

     Kageyama watches as Hinata turns his back to him and grabs his bike, ready to leave. He feels, in his chest, a small pang of something that he cannot quite pinpoint, but knows has something to do with the fact that now that the fence is finished, Hinata won’t have a reason to show up at his garden every night. The feeling is annoying, and he most definitely hates it, but it's there.

     “You know,” Hinata’s voice snaps Kageyama out of his thoughts. He stares expectantly at the redhead, who still has his back turned to him. “We never exchanged names.”

     “We didn’t?” Kageyama says, and then it dawns on him: he really doesn’t know the name of the boy who broke his fence, and has been stopping by his house ever since just to fix it.

     “Nope. You just kept calling me ‘dumbass’, and I just . . . ‘hey’d’ you.” Hinata turns to look at him from over his shoulder, a tiny smile playing on his lips. “So, I know it’s kinda late for introductions, but my name’s Hinata. Hinata Shouyou.”

     _Hinata Shouyou_. The name echoes in Kageyama’s mind, the sound of it on the voice of his owner feeling strangely sweet in his ears. One look at the boy’s wild, orange hair, and the undying light of his brown eyes, and Kageyama can’t help but to think that his name fits him perfectly.

     “Kageyama Tobio,” he says after a moment, when he notices the mix of impatience and curiosity that adorns Hinata’s face at his lack of an immediate response.

     “Wow, that’s really fitting!” Hinata observes with a smile, and Kageyama can’t stop himself from mirroring it. “Kageyama.” Hinata tries out the new name, and Kageyama feels strangely vulnerable at the sound of his name dancing on the boy’s lips.

    And maybe it’s because it _does_ make him feel vulnerable, or because Hinata’s hair looks kind of really pretty against the new, shiny color of the fence, or because neither him nor Hinata seem very keen on parting ways tonight, but Kageyama finds himself carefully taking a beautiful orange gerbera from a nearby bush, and handing it to Hinata.

     Hinata blinks owlishly at him, then at the flower, and then back at him, and Kageyama starts fidgeting nervously under his gaze.

     “Y-you like flowers, don’t you?” he stammers, pointedly looking everywhere except at Hinata’s face.

     “Yes!” Hinata chokes out, hurrying to grab the flower. He holds it against his chest, and even under the poor light of the lamp post, Kageyama can notice the light blush that covers his cheeks.

     Hinata carefully places the flower on the basket of his bike, and then jumps on the seat. Slowly, a cheeky smile spreads across his lips before he turns to give a mischievous look in Kageyama’s direction.

     “You know what, Kageyama? I think I’ll come back tomorrow.”

     This time, Kageyama doesn’t complain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dontsaycrazy: Hey! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I want to thank all of you who left us comments and/or kudos. Your feedback is extremely important and rewarding to us, so please keep it coming ♥
> 
> I'm at allen-walkers on Tumblr, if you want to come talk to me!


	3. Chapter 3

     “Tobio!”

     Kageyama perks up at the sound of Koshi calling his name from the front door. He jumps off the couch and heads towards his guardian, before realizing he’s still holding Koshi’s worn-out copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He hurries to place it back in its shelf, cursing under his breath when his haphazard movements make another book fall to the floor.

     “Tobio! Come here, I need your help!”

     “I’m coming!” Kageyama places the fallen book on its previous spot, and then runs to the front door.

     He finds Koshi standing there with a big box in his arms, topped with two smaller boxes that look dangerously close to falling. Kageyama hurries to grab the smaller packages, and then follows Koshi into the living room.

     “What’s in these boxes?” Kageyama asks, eyeing them with interest as he sets them on the couch.

     But Koshi doesn’t answer, busy as he is with unpacking the first, bigger box. He grabs the equally big object inside it in his arms, and then turns to carefully set it on the coffee table before turning to give Kageyama a triumphant smile. The younger vampire’s eyes dart from the strange, button-covered, cube-shaped object, to his guardian’s bright smile.

     “What the hell is this?” he finally asks, and Koshi’s face immediately drops.

     “It’s a television, Tobio! You don’t know what a TV is?”

     “No,” Kageyama answers, raising one eyebrow and side-eyeing the foreign grey object. “What does it do?”

     Instead of answering, Koshi raises his index finger, smile returning to his face. Then he rummages behind the narrower part of the TV until he finds a thick, black cable. Under Kageyama’s curious gaze, he moves to plug it in one of the few outlets on the wall, and then ceremoniously turns it on by pressing the biggest button.

     The loud, screeching sound of static assaults their ears and invades the entire living room, making them cover their ears immediately. Kageyama throws a horrified glance at the now-lit TV screen, shining dully with black, grey, and white dots that dance around frantically in no particular pattern.

     Koshi hurries to turn the TV off, and Kageyama finally uncovers his ears. They stare silently at each other for a while, and Kageyama is the first one to speak.

     “What the hell, Koshi!? That thing sucks!”

     “It’s not supposed to work like that!” Koshi begins to examine the TV, poking at the remaining buttons and sticking his pinky finger in the unused multimedia ports. “Maybe it’s because it’s old? Nowadays televisions are flat and elegant . . .”

     Kageyama glares at the TV (which is far from being flat, or elegant), and wonders what made it appealing enough for Koshi to bring it home.

     “Why did you bring that thing?”

     “Because I know you get bored in here, and you’re about to finish all the books we have. The ones you don’t refuse to read, at least.” Koshi approaches the bookshelf, and then smirks to himself before continuing. “But it seems that you finally gave in to Harry Potter’s enchant.”

     “H-how did you know!?”

     “You put The Prisoner of Azkaban between The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince. I had them placed in the perfect order,” Koshi explains, taking out the book Kageyama was previously reading and opening it on the page he had bookmarked a few minutes ago. “Oh, this chapter is really good!”

     “It’s alright,” Kageyama mumbles, still embarrassed at being discovered so easily.

     “Then I guess we can worry about the TV later!” Koshi places the book back in its right place, and then walks back to the television to examine it once again. “I’ll ask Akaashi to come help me set it up.”

     “And what are these?” Kageyama asks, holding the smaller boxes he had left on the couch earlier.

     “Oh, those are cell phones.”

     “Cell phones?”

     “They’re tiny phones that-”

     “I know what they are.” Kageyama opens one of the boxes and retrieves a small, yellow-colored flip phone. “What did you get us cell phones for?”

     “Oh, you know, now that I have a job I thought it’d be nice to have some way to communicate when I’m not home. And I can talk to Akaashi in case of any emergency as well,” Koshi explains. “Ah, the yellow one is mine; yours is dark blue.”

     He reaches out to grab the phone from Kageyama’s hand, but Kageyama quickly snatches it away. A frown of surprise appears instantly on Koshi’s face, and Kageyama rushes to explain himself.

     “Can I keep the yellow one? I like it better.”

     “Since when do you like yellow so much?” Koshi asks, placing his hands on his hips, and looking at him with a raised eyebrow. “First the chrysanthemums, then the fence, which looked _way_ prettier when it was white, if you ask me,” he continues, and Kageyama rolls his eyes at what could easily be the fifty-sixth time Koshi complains about the new color of the fence. “And now you want the yellow phone over the blue one? You’ve always liked blue!”

     “Yeah, it’s just . . .” Kageyama racks his brain in search of an answer under his guardian’s questioning look. He doesn’t even know _why_ he wants the yellow one, he just does, _and damn it, Koshi, what’s the big deal with me liking yellow?_

     “Fine,” Koshi says after a while, and Kageyama nearly sighs with relief at not having to give him an actual answer. “You can keep the yellow one. Pass me the other one.”

     Kageyama hands Koshi the unopened box, and watches as he flops down on the couch before taking out his new cell phone.

     “There’s a tiny piece of paper inside the box with your number in it,” Koshi explains, extending his free hand towards Kageyama with his eyes fixed on the phone screen as it begins to turn on. “Give it to me so I can save it to my phone.”

     A few minutes later, Kageyama is staring at Koshi’s newly-imputed number on his phone, the only one adorning his otherwise empty contact list.  

     “Where did you get all these things anyway?” he asks, sitting down on the couch next to Koshi.

     “A pretty vampire like me has his ways,” Koshi answers with a playful wink. He receives a frown, and an incredulous look from Kageyama in response.

     “No, seriously, where did you get these things?”

     “Akaashi gave the TV to me. He said he didn’t need it anymore, so he told me to take it home. The cell phones I bought with my first pay,” Koshi explains cheerfully, but his smile disappears when he notices Kageyama’s evident discomfort as his words.

     “Why do people keep giving us things?”

     “To help us, of course! You know they know what we do isn’t easy.” Kageyama frowns, and Koshi straightens his back against the couch, watching the younger vampire closely as he carefully constructs his next sentence. “Besides, it’s their way to show their respect to you.”

     “I don’t want their respect!” Kageyama snaps, throwing his new phone on the couch, where it bounces a couple times, dangerously close to falling to the floor. “I don’t deserve it.”

     Koshi watches him earnestly, but his gaze softens when he notices how conflicted Kageyama looks.

     “You do. In their eyes, at least.” He sits up with a sight, and softly places one hand on the younger vampire’s shoulder. “And in mine, too.”

     Kageyama lifts his gaze, surprised by Koshi’s words, and finds a gentle, reassuring smile on his guardian’s face. It’s the same smile Koshi has been giving him for years, the smile he grew with, the first smile he remembers. His first memories are all of Koshi: his voice, his hands, his hair, the way he always smelled of fresh flowers- it was the scent of home. And Koshi’s smile was home itself.

     That’s the reason why Koshi’s answer feels so bitter in the back of Kageyama’s throat. Suddenly, Kageyama feels the tiny claw of decades worth of insecurities is scratching their way up through his neck.

     “Is that why you did all those things for me?” he asks in a quiet voice. “Is that why you took care of me all these years? Because you respect me?”

     “At first, yes.” Koshi removes his hand from Kageyama’s shoulder to run his finger through his light-colored locks. The younger vampire watches him with the utmost attention, waiting impatiently for him to continue. “But then I started doing it out of love.”

     Kageyama’s eyes widen with evident surprise, and he blinks slowly a couple times. The word “love” is not one they have uttered a lot over their years together, despite their decades-long closeness.

     “Oh, don’t act so surprised, you know I love you!” Koshi reaches out over the couch to slap his hand against Kageyama’s back, making him cough and splutter in surprise. Koshi laughs loudly while Kageyama recovers from his caring violence, but then his face softens into a look of endearment. “I’ve always loved you, Tobio. And it was never hard, either; you were such a cute, soft little baby, nobody could’ve resisted you!”

     Kageyama lets a soft smile fall into his lips. A fleeting thought crosses his mind: _if blood ran through my veins, I would definitely be blushing right now._

     He finally looks up and meets Koshi’s eyes. What he finds in his guardian’s face is nothing other than home, always warm, always gentle, always waiting for him.

     " _Thank god blood doesn’t run through our veins."_

~•~

     “Hey, Hinata.”

     Hinata looks up from the lilacs that he was previously admiring, to find Kageyama staring at him with his face scrunched up in a deep scowl.

     “Whoa, what’s with the scary face?”

     “I need your help with this.” Kageyama inserts his hand in his pocket, and then retrieves it with a rectangular yellow object in it.

     “A cell phone?” Hinata asks once he figures out what it is. He gives Kageyama a questioning look, eyebrows raised, and receives an even deeper scowl in return. “You don’t know how to use it?”

     “Clearly I don’t, that’s why I’m asking you for help, dumbass.”

     “Wait.” Hinata’s eyes widen, as they dart back and forth between Kageyama’s moody face and the cell phone in his hand. “Is this the first cell phone you have?”

     “Yes.”

     “Aw, that’s kinda cute!”

     “Shut up, idiot, it’s not cute at all!” Kageyama shoves his phone into Hinata’s chest in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. “Now help me figure out how to use this stupid thing, will you?”

     After a little over half an hour, Kageyama more or less understands how to use his new, now less-confusing artifact. He has to admit that Hinata does a good job at teaching him, staying patient even after the fourth time Kageyama asks him what the green little button underneath the screen is, and even getting Kageyama to take a couple pictures of his favorite flowers in the garden.

     “See? It’s not that hard!” Hinata assures him, staring at the slightly blurry picture Kageyama just took of Koshi’s tiny lavender bush.

     All of sudden, he takes Kageyama’s phone from his hand. He ignores his complaints as he quickly taps away on the keys for a while before returning it to its owner.

     “There,” he says, just as Kageyama roughly grabs his phone from his hands. “Now you have my number.” Hinata shows him his own phone, shining with a recently sent text from Kageyama’s number, and smiles contentedly. “And I have yours!”

     “Why would I want your number?” Kageyama asks, scrunching up his nose.

     “Oh, come on, Kageyama, don’t be like that!” Hinata pouts for a moment, and then gives him one of his wide, bright smiles, the ones that Kageyama knows for a fact would make his heart beat faster if it could beat at all. “We’re friends, so of course we should have each other’s numbers!”

     Kageyama doesn’t say anything for a while, his mind rendered useless by the combination of Hinata’s grin, and his casual use of the word “friends”. Once he is finally able to form coherent words again, he settles for the most offensive thing he can manage at the moment:

     “You really think I’d want to text or call an annoying guy like you?”

     Hinata nearly gasps, clearly offended at Kageyama’s words. A scowl begins to set on his face, and Kageyama is beginning to let a triumphant smile take over his lips, when Hinata’s expression changes into one of fiery determination.

     “Ok, Mr. Grumpy, you know what?”

     Hinata nearly jumps on top of Kageyama to snatch his phone from his hand, and then presses their cheeks together to swiftly and expertly take a picture of both of them. Before Kageyama can react, he sets it as his phone background, and then closes the cell phone before throwing it back to Kageyama, who catches it mid-air.

     “What the hell did you do, you dumbass!?”

     Instead of answering, Hinata watches with a mischievous smile as Kageyama opens his phone, and then frowns deeply when he sees the picture greeting him from the screen. It is more than a little blurry, given the highly suboptimal conditions it was taken in, but Hinata’s cheeky smile, and his own terrible grimace, a horrifying mixture of confusion and anger, are clearly visible.

    “What the hell is this!?” he barks, nearly shoving the phone into Hinata’s face.

     “Your new background!” Hinata explains with a smile that tries to be innocent, but ends up looking teasing instead.

     “Change it back!”

     “I don’t know how to.” Hinata shrugs, feigning innocence.

     “You liar, of course you do!”

     “Learn how to do it yourself, since I’m _such_ an annoying guy!”

     No amount of yelling, threats, or reluctant begging is enough to make Hinata get rid of the terrible picture.

     However, as Kageyama is lying in bed that night, staring moodily at his new, unwanted phone background, an interesting realization dawns on him.

     _“So vampores_ do _show up in pictures,”_ he thinks, and the thought is enough to put a tiny smile on his face.

~•~

     Hinata has been showing up at his garden nearly every night for almost two weeks, when he makes a comment that Kageyama most definitely isn’t ready for. They’re sitting in the garden together (they never go into the house, since Kageyama fears Koshi will smell Hinata on the furniture when he comes home from work), when Hinata’s voice breaks the comfortable silence they have fallen into.

     “Your teeth are kinda weird, you know?”

     Kageyama immediately slaps his hand against his mouth to cover his teeth, eyes widening almost impossibly big.

     “W-w-what are you talking about?” he stammers, his voice muffled by his fingers.

     “I mean, your fangs are super long and pointy,” Hinata explains, eyebrows raised in confusion at Kageyama’s apparently exaggerated reaction. “They’re cool. They make you look like a vampire!”

     Kageyama has to make an enormous effort to avoid any compromising physical reaction to Hinata’s unconsciously alarming statement. Instead, he lets a deep scowl take over his entire face, and lowers his hand to stare at the boy with what he hopes will look like an offended glare.

     “Well, your hair is weird. It makes you look like a fairy.”

     “Hey, what the hell!?” Hinata turns to glare at him, looking as offended as an old lady who’s just been accused of wearing fake pearls. “You’re such an asshole, Kageyama!”

     “You’re the one who called me a v-v-vampire!” Kageyama struggles with the last word, still alarmed at Hinata’s casual comment. _“There’s no way he knows, he’s too much of an idiot to figure it out. Right?”_ he thinks, trying to reassure himself.

     “But being a vampire is cool, being a fairy is not!”

     Kageyama’s head snaps to look at Hinata, surprised by his weird statement.

     “You think vampires are cool?” he asks, surprising himself when he feels a tiny, proud smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

     “Of course I do. You don’t?”

     Kageyama pretends to think it over for a moment, with Hinata’s expectant gaze fixed on him, before shaking his head dismissively.

     “Nah, not really.”

~•~

     Kageyama is running out of excuses to tell Koshi when he asks him why he smells like human as soon as he gets back home, so he begins to take showers every night before Koshi gets home from work. It means having to kick Hinata out earlier than before, but it’s a sacrifice that must be made. His guardian merely shoots him curious looks when he begins to be greeted by a wet-haired Kageyama every night, but he chalks up the younger vampire’s sudden obsession with cleanliness, and showering twice a day as one of his weird teenage phases. Vampires can have those too, he guesses.

     Kageyama also has to be careful enough to avoid texting Hinata in front of Koshi. As far as his guardian knows, he’s the only member of Kageyama’s highly-exclusive contacts list, and getting seen texting an unknown person in the middle of the day is guaranteed to raise suspicion from Koshi.

     But other than dealing with hiding his secret nightly meetings from Koshi, Kageyama also has to make sure that Hinata doesn’t end up realizing that he is not, in fact, a human like him. He starts by researching for a way to hide his sharpened fangs, but he finds none. So he lets them be. He figures that there’s no way Hinata will _actually_ realize that he is a vampire, like he so carelessly suggested a mere couple of nights before.

     The complicated part actually begins a few nights after that one, when Hinata starts inviting him to do other things besides sitting at the garden of Kageyama’s house amongst the flowers to bicker and talk about the silliest, most unimportant things.

     “You should come with me to that ramen place a few blocks from here, I’ve wanted to go there for a while,” he says one night, right after they finish a fight that was unintentionally started by Hinata when he mentions how awful Kageyama’s texting skills are. “Let’s go have lunch there tomorrow. It’s a Saturday, so we don’t have to go to school!”

     “I can’t,” Kageyama mumbles, tearing his gaze from Hinata’s excited brown eyes.

     “Why not?” Hinata asks, sounding clearly disappointed.

     “I . . . have to take my cat to the vet,” Kageyama offers him the first lie that comes to mind, immediately wincing at how obviously fake his excuse was. But thankfully for him, Hinata ends up being even more thick-headed than he originally thought.

     “You have a cat?” he asks, excitement returning to his voice. “Where is it? Can I see it?”

     “No!” Kageyama rushes to say, and Hinata visibly deflates. “It . . . doesn’t like strangers.”

     “Aw, but I really like cats!”

     “I said no, you dumbass!”

     Hinata’s invitations keep coming after that, but thankfully for Kageyama, Hinata is busy with school during most of the day, which leaves only the weekends as potential invitation-days. Kageyama is sure that he can keep coming up with excuses for only two days a week, no matter how obviously fake they are. Hinata will believe them, anyway.

     But then, just as he’s feeling safe and sure that he’ll be able to avoid any risky situations, the questions begin.

     “Hey, Kageyama, which high-school do you go to?” he asks one day, taking Kageyama completely by surprise.

     “I’m homeschooled,” he blurts out after a few moments of stammering and blabbering in search of an answer.

     Hinata hums appreciatively in response, eyes fixed on the starry sky above. Kageyama thinks that will be the end of it, but Hinata proves him wrong (as he often does) by speaking up again not even fifteen seconds later.

     The boy bombards him with questions that he can barely answer:

_"Is that pretty guy with the light hair your brother?”_

_"What do you mean by ‘guardian’?”_

_“Where does he work?”_

_“Do you have a job as well?”_

_“Where are your parents?”_

_“Do you have any siblings?”_

But they finally stop when Kageyama raises his voice, fed-up with Hinata’s incessant voice drilling up his ears.

     “God, shut up, will you?” Hinata’s mouth snaps shut, eyes wide at Kageyama’s sudden outburst, and Kageyama must admit to himself that the face he makes makes him feel a little bit guilty for yelling at him. Just a little. “What’s with all these questions all of sudden?” Kageyama asks, voice softening slightly.

     “Sorry,” Hinata apologizes. He turns his eyes away from Kageyama, and begins to scratch the back of his head with an absent look in the opposite direction. “It’s just that . . . I don’t really know much about you, you know?”

     Kageyama’s frown softens at Hinata’s words, which reach his ears quietly, barely louder than a whisper.

     Hinata is right. Kageyama knows a lot about the boy’s life: the name of the high-school he attends, his undying love for volleyball, the names of his teammates (along with some of their most amusing anecdotes), his favorite food, his most disliked school subjects, and even the name of his younger sister.

     Hinata, on the other hand, knows almost nothing about him.

     It is to be expected, and Kageyama knows it, of course. Revealing too much about his past or his daily life will irremediably lead to Hinata figuring out his true identity. And not even Hinata is dumb enough to keep believing Kageyama is a human after finding out that he’s actually sixty-three.

     But the lonely expression on the boy’s face still manages to make Kageyama’s chest ache with a foreign feeling of solitude.

     “Koshi works at a flower shop,” he discovers himself blurting out before he can stop himself. Hinata returns his gaze to his face, evidently surprised by the sudden change in Kageyama’s attitude. “I don’t have a job, so I mostly stay home and read during the day.” Kageyama stops for a moment, and then resumes his talking when he notices the curious light shining in Hinata’s eyes. “I never met my parents, and I don’t have any siblings. Koshi is the closest thing I have to a brother.”

     Kageyama turns to look away, a deep frown etched into his face. He has has given Hinata too much information, and he knows it. He just couldn’t help himself when he saw how sad Hinata looked, how eager he was to learn more about him.

     “Thanks, Kageyama.” Hinata’s unusually sweet voice makes Kageyama turn his head back around. A soft smile shines on Hinata’s face, nowhere near as big and bright as his usual, breath-taking ones, but still beautiful nonetheless.

     “For what?” Kageyama mumbles, unable to look away from the gentle expression on Hinata’s face.

     “For telling me those things.”

     A soft nightly breeze blows around them, carrying the sweet smell of flowers and recently watered soil. Hinata tears his eyes from Kageyama’s dark ones, looking at the ground between his feet instead, but the remnants of his smile still linger on his pink, delicate-looking lips.

     Kageyama gets the sudden urge to reach out and touch them **,** to gently run the tips of his fingers across the soft skin of Hinata’s lips. Because it’s definitely soft, and probably warm, too. His skin must feel like it’s burning under Kageyama’s eternally cold one. He wants to feel that warmth, to let it spread across his fingertips, and find out if Hinata’s lips are actually as plump as they look under the poor light of the lonely lamp post that shines on them from across the street.

     But he refrains, choosing to fiddle with the hem of his shirt instead to keep his fingers occupied and away from Hinata’s _dumb, stupid lips._

~•~

     As it turns out, Koshi isn’t nearly as excited as before about having a television when he finds out that he needs cable to make it work, and that cable not only implies a highly unwanted visit from a probably human worker, but that it also must be paid for. His excitement returns, however, when Akaashi informs him about the wonders of the DVD player.

     They are currently lying on the couch, wonder-filled eyes completely fixated on the TV screen as the moving pictures it displays cast colorful lights on their faces.

     “Tobio, look at Mr. Darcy!” Koshi exclaims, slapping him repeatedly on his thigh with his eyes fixed on the screen, and a dreamy expression on his face. “He’s so handsome, Tobio!”

     Kageyama absently nods. He finds the movie version of _Pride and Prejudice_ to be quite more tolerable than the book. He would never risk saying that out loud, of course, because it would mean at least decades of Koshi calling him an “uncultured, unliterary brat” like he did when he dared say that _The Old Man and the Sea_ was a boring book.

     A stack of DVDs rests on the floor next to the couch, hours-worth of entertainment material yet to be viewed. Akaashi had been kind enough to let Koshi borrow them, and also attentive enough to give him the address to the nearest movie rental shop. Koshi and Kageyama are almost halfway through Akaashi’s movies, and since they’ve only owned the DVD player for three nights, a visit to the shop is already unofficially scheduled.

     Koshi leans down to pick another movie once _Pride and Prejudice_ is over. As he shuffles through the DVD boxes, Kageyama’s eyes suddenly get wide with realization. His hand shoots up to grab Koshi’s shoulder, startling the older vampire.

     “Are there Harry Potter movies?” Kageyama asks. Koshi slowly tears his eyes from the boxes to mirror the younger vampire’s wide-eyed look, eyes twinkling with excitement.

     That night, Koshi returns with a stack of DVDs and a gigantic grin on his face.

~•~

     They’re halfway through their Harry Potter marathon, when Kageyama’s phone vibrates inside of his pocket, alerting him of an incoming text. Kageyama’s hand instinctively reaches out for his phone, but he stops himself when he realizes that Koshi is sitting next to him, and answering a text from Hinata is probably not a good idea at the moment.

     Kageyama casts a sidelong glance in Koshi’s direction. His guardian’s undivided attention is focused on the screen, so Kageyama risks discretely taking out his phone, and opening it to read the text.

     _“Meet me today at the park when the sun sets. Don’t be late!”_

     Kageyama’s eyebrows knit together at Hinata’s strange message, but he hadn’t have much time to think about it when Koshi suddenly cries out, nearly startling him out of his skin.

     “No! Sirius!”

     “Wait, I missed it!” Kageyama exclaims, returning his attention to the movie. “Rewind it!”

     “No! I refuse to watch that scene again!”

     “Koshi, you already read the books!”

     “It still hurts, Tobio!”

     Kageyama’s phone lies forgotten on the couch while he bickers with Koshi, who keeps loudly refusing to even hand him the remote.

~•~

     It isn’t until the sun is about to set, and he hears Koshi getting ready to leave inside his bedroom, that Kageyama remembers Hinata’s text. He opens his phone and re-reads the text. He’s about to send Hinata a response, when the phone begins to ring in his hands.

     Kageyama scrambles to answer, waiting for a moment to make sure Koshi didn’t hear it, before putting it to his ear.

     “What do you want?” Kageyama hisses into the receiver.

     “Hey, jerk, you never answered my text!” is all Hinata offers him as a greeting.

     “I forgot about it.”

     “Mean!” Kageyama hears Hinata huff on the other side of the line, and rolls his eyes despite knowing that the boy can’t see him. “Are you coming to the park tonight or not?”

     Hinata’s question takes Kageyama by surprise. He hasn’t even stopped to decide if he will go or not, but when the sound of Koshi opening and closing drawers in his bedroom reaches his ears, he already knows his answer.

     “I’ll have to wait until Koshi leaves.”

     “I’ll see you there, then!”

     With that, Hinata ends the call. Kageyama heaves a tiresome sigh and moves the phone away from his face. He catches sight of the picture of him and Hinata that adorns his background, and immediately snaps his phone shut with a scowl.

~•~

     Hinata is already there waiting for him when Kageyama arrives at the park, sitting on a swing with a volleyball on his lap. There’s no one else there, Kageyama notices as he makes his way across the well-lit place to meet Hinata.

     The boy grins widely and waves at him once he spots him across the cemented playground. Kageyama notices the small puffs of warm air that form around Hinata’s face when he breathes, so he assumes that the night is unusually cold. He can’t feel it, really, with his skin being as cold as it is, but he assumes that the thin-looking jacket Hinata is wearing isn’t really doing much to protect him from the nightly breeze.

     “Are you cold?” is the first thing Kageyama says when he reaches Hinata’s side, not even bothering with a greeting.

     “A little bit, I guess,” Hinata answers, watching as the air condenses around his words. “I didn’t expect it to be so cold so early.”

     Without a word, Kageyama grabs the hem of his dark blue hoodie and pulls it over his head. He shoves it against Hinata’s chest, and the boy hesitantly lets go of his ball to grab it.

     “But, Kageyama, aren’t you cold too?”

     “Not really.”

     “Then.” Hinata sets the ball on the floor and stands up. He carefully places Kageyama’s hoodie on the swing he was using, and then unzips his jacket to take it off before handing it to Kageyama. “You can have mine!”

     Kageyama eyes the light-colored piece of clothing with distrust, but still grabs it and puts in on. He watches as Hinata pulls his hoodie on, orange locks emerging from the head hole a few moments later, and contrasting with the dark color of the fabric.

     Hinata takes one look at him and instantly bursts out laughing, much to Kageyama’s dismay.

     “W-what are you laughing at, you idiot!?”

     “Kageyama!” Hinata bends down, clutching to his stomach as he tries to get the words out. “You look ridiculous!”

     Kageyama looks down at his own body. He has to admit that Hinata is right: he does look ridiculous. The sleeves of Hinata’s jacket are way too short for his arms, and the hem ends way over his hips. No matter how he looks at it, Hinata’s jacket definitely does not fit him.

     Embarrassed, and more than a little offended, Kageyama looks up at Hinata, who is still laughing at him. He doesn’t look much better than him, actually. Kageyama’s hoodie is way too big for his short stature and small frame. His hands don’t even reach the holes on the sleeves, hidden under a few inches of fabric, and the hem goes down to Hinata’s mid-thigh.

     “Shut up, dumbass, you look ridiculous too!”

     “Nah, I look adorable,” Hinata refutes with a cheeky smile. He raises his sleeve-covered hands and places them on each side of his face, and Kageyama frowns because _damn him, he does look cute._

     Hinata reaches down to grab his ball from the floor, and then turns his back to Kageyama.

     “Let’s go.”

     “Where?”

     “There’s a small volleyball court over there,” Hinata explains, pointing his finger to a flat cement surface with a net held between two poles a couple meters ahead of them. “We’re gonna play.”

     “But I’ve never played volleyball,” Kageyama complains, but still follows Hinata when he starts making his way over to the court.

     “I know, but you’re tall and you look athletic, and I need someone to help me practice my spikes.”

     “Athletic?” Kageyama repeats under his breath. He looks down at his body, which he had always considered average. But vampires probably do look fit to humans, he realizes; they can’t really get fat, and their muscles are lean and well-defined. Those are normal characteristics of his species, but a sportsman like Hinata must probably appreciate those qualities, he thinks.

     Kageyama tries to steer his mind away from that topic when he realizes that the thought of Hinata appreciating his body makes him all sorts of flustered.

~•~

     After a quick, quite unhelpful lesson on basic tossing from Hinata (who most definitely isn’t a setter, Kageyama notices when the boy tries to set a ball and catches it with his face), they start practicing. Despite his previous failed attempts at setting, Kageyama can’t help but to notice that Hinata is a pretty good spiker. After their movements become coordinated enough, Hinata ends up hitting every ball Kageyama sends his way, turning to smile brightly at him after the satisfying sound of his spike hitting the ground at full speed.

     Kageyama ends up getting the hang of it very quickly, much to Hinata’s surprise. The boy soon begins to gingerly request some things from Kageyama: a little higher, closer to the net, then further away from it, a bit faster, and Kageyama can’t hide his satisfied smiles when he manages to meet the spiker’s requests. Soon enough, they’ve forgotten about the coldness of the night, and despite Kageyama’s inability to sweat, big drops of moisture run down Hinata’s face and neck, forcing him to take off Kageyama’s hoodie and leave it on the ground after a little over a half an hour of practice.

     It isn’t until Kageyama is running back to the court after discarding Hinata’s jacket and dropping it on top of his hoodie, that he realizes that he is actually having fun.

     “Kageyama, let’s try it a bit lower now!” Hinata exclaims from the opposite side of the court.

     Kageyama nods and grabs the ball mid-air when Hinata throws it at him. After getting into position, he exchanges a look and a tiny nod with his partner before getting ready to toss to him.

~•~

     “Whew, that was fun!”

     “Maybe for you, you volleyball brain.”

     “Oh, shut up, Kageyama, you were totally having fun!”

     Hinata insisted on making their way back home trough the main street, given the time and the darkness of the night, but Kageyama’s only concern is not running into Koshi. Despite knowing that Akaashi’s shop is a few blocks away from the main street, and that Koshi still has more than two hours left before his shift ends, Kageyama can’t stop himself from constantly looking around, cautiously looking for his guardian.

     “Kageyama, look!” Hinata’s voice makes him return his attention to the boy. He is pointing at something, and Kageyama’s eyes follow the direction of Hinata’s finger until they reach what seems to be a cell phone store.

     Hinata sprints towards the store, and Kageyama immediately follows him, yelling at him to wait. Hinata stops in front of the main window, where all sort of accessories are being exhibited.

     “Look at those charms, aren’t they pretty?”

     Kageyama directs his gaze to the charms in question, immediately agreeing with Hinata: they are really pretty. They come in different combinations of small, brightly colored glass beads, ending with a tiny dry flower protected inside a transparent bead. There are all sorts of flowers adorning the charms, and the two of them take a while to admire them from behind the glass.

     “Kageyama, let’s buy one!” Hinata suggests, tugging at Kageyama’s sleeve. He pats his pockets, and then his face falls. “Aw, man, I didn’t bring my wallet,” he mumbles dejectedly, eyebrows knitting together with disappointment.

     Kageyama stares at the charms for a moment, and then takes a look at Hinata’s sad face, before heaving a sigh and heading inside the store.

     “Come on, I’ll pay for yours.”

     “Eh? Wait, you don’t have to!” Hinata grips Kageyama’s sleeve one more time to stop him, but Kageyama shakes him off.

     “I already said I would. Now come on.”

     Hinata gingerly follows Kageyama inside the store, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

     “Fine, but I’m gonna pay you back tomorrow,” he mumbles.

     “No, you’re not, dumbass.” Kageyama stops and turns to glare at him with a mixture of annoyance and determination. “It’s a gift.”

     As he turns his head back to ask the store dependant for help, Kageyama can see Hinata’s light blush and tiny smile from the corner of his eye. He clears his throat in an attempt to dissipate the warm feeling that Hinata’s expression has put inside his chest, but he still stammers a little when the dependant asks what he can do for them.

~•~

   After a lot of musing, Hinata finally settles for an orange alyssum charm (and his choice had nothing to do with Kageyama telling him that the flower reminded him of his hair, thank you very much), and Kageyama instantly picks the yellow acacia one, thinking that it will match his phone well. He also buys the forget-me-not one for Koshi, knowing full-well that his guardian is gonna love it.

     Kageyama ends up walking Hinata all the way to his house, insisting that it’s late, and Hinata looks like a weakling, so he would feel bad leaving him alone. Hinata is, of course, pretty offended at Kageyama’s implications that he cannot defend himself, but he still keeps thanking him non-stop for buying him the charm nearly all the way there, until Kageyama less-than-kindly asks him to shut up about it.

     “We’re here,” Hinata announces. Kageyama stops walking and turns to look at Hinata’s house. It looks warm and cozy from the outside, and Kageyama discovers himself thinking that it must be on the inside too, if Hinata lives there. “Thanks for walking me here. And for the charm,” he adds with a smile.

     “Don’t mention it,” Kageyama says with a wave of his hand, and then turns around to leave. “See you.”

     “Hey, Kageyama!” Hinata calls out before he can take a single step. Kageyama turns to look at him, and Hinata’s face eases into a warm smile. “I had a lot of fun tonight.”

     Before he can stop to think about it, Kageyama is already returning the smile.

     “So did I.”

~•~

     He arrives at his house mere minutes before Koshi, who looks, like he does every night after work, tired but content. He nearly crushes Kageyama with an affectionate hug when he hands him the charm, and he is so happy with it that he forgets to ask Kageyama what he was doing in the city without him.

     Later, while Koshi sets everything up for a Lord of the Rings marathon, Kageyama is sitting on the couch, absently playing with his new cell phone charm, when an old memory strikes him.

     He remembers going through the pages of one of Koshi’s gardening books when he was barely twenty years old. It was the biggest, most striking one, full of colorful pictures of every flower one could think of.

     Along with the name and the picture of each flower, a chart indicated every bit of scientific information about the flower, and then a bigger chart told the reader all about how to plant, grow, and take care of each plant. Then, right at the bottom of the page, there was the meaning of each flower. That was Kageyama’s favorite part.

     Looking at the small acacia flower that adorns his cell phone charm, Kageyama suddenly remembers reading its meaning in Koshi’s beloved book: _In its Victorian interpretation,_ _Acacia flowers signify secret love._

     Koshi looks up, startled, at the sound of Kageyama screaming, and throwing his phone to the opposite side of the couch. They exchange confused and embarrassed looks, respectively, before Koshi returns his attention to the DVD player, his eyebrows nearly raised to his hairline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dontsaycrazy: Hey! I really want to thank the people who leave us comments and kudos, from the bottom of my heart. What you think of our story really means a lot to us, cause this is our baby and we love it, and sharing it with you is very important to us (Did that even make sense? I hope it did...) So, once again, thank you for taking the time to let us know what you think of our story ♥ See you soon with the next chapter!!!


	4. Chapter 4

     Koshi looks around the street to make sure it’s empty before knocking on the wooden door of the house in front of him. A few seconds pass before he can hear the sound of hurried footsteps coming from inside, and then the door opens slightly. A pair of familiar brown eyes peeks at him for a moment, and then the door opens completely.

     “Good night, Sugawara-san,” Yachi greets him with a sweet smile. She’s already clad in her nurse uniform, and Koshi figures she must be ready to head for work. “Please come in.”

     “Good night, Hitoka-chan.” Koshi steps inside the house and takes off his shoes at the entrance before following Yachi into the living room.

     “Kiyoko!” Yachi calls out from the bottom of the stairs. “Sugawara-san is here!”

     “I’m coming!” Kiyoko’s gentle voice drifts downstairs almost immediately, and she’s coming down the stairs a few short moments later. She’s also wearing her uniform, but she looks nowhere near as ready as Yachi. Her shift must start later than her girlfriend’s, Koshi thinks as he turns to give her friend a gentle smile. Kiyoko returns it instantly, and then approaches him to engulf him in a soft embrace. “It’s been a while, Koshi.”

     “Hey, Kiyoko,” Koshi greets her back once they part. “You look great, as always.”

     “You too, as always,” Kiyoko gives him a toothy smile, and Koshi can’t help but to notice that one of her fangs is significantly shorter than the other.

      _“She must’ve been halfway through filing them,”_ he thinks.

     Aside from being uncomfortable and painful, teeth-filing is viewed as a very degrading practice in the vampire world, and it is frowned upon by the most conservative vampires. But for people like Kiyoko and Yachi, who interact with dozens of humans on a daily basis as night­-shift nurses, it’s a sacrifice that must be made. No matter how much they hate filing their teeth to hide their length and sharpness, being found out by humans would be much more humiliating, not to mention extremely dangerous.

     “I have to get going. My shift is starting soon,” Yachi says, glancing at her watch. She smiles in Koshi’s direction and gives him a polite nod of her head. “I hope we’ll see each other soon, Sugawara-san.”

     “Of course, Hitoka-chan.” Koshi effortlessly returns her smile. “I’ll make sure to visit more often,” he adds with a fond look in her direction.

     Yachi beams at him and nods before turning to Kiyoko. She closes her eyes when her girlfriend presses a soft kiss on her forehead, and then looks up at her with a mix of admiration and love so intimate, that it would have been able to make Koshi blush if he could.

     “Be safe on the way there. I’ll see you in a while,” Kiyoko says with a soft caress to her cheek. Yachi nods one more time, and then grabs her bag from the couch before leaving out the front door.

     Kiyoko waits until she hears the front door closing behind Yachi, before turning to look at Koshi with a somber look on her face.

     “I have bad news for you.”

     “Oh, boy,” Koshi gives her a sympathetic grimace. “Is it about what I think it is?”

     Kiyoko gestures for him to follow her before making her way into the kitchen. Once there, she opens the fridge to reveal a few plastic bags filled with a thick, red liquid. Kiyoko reaches inside the fridge to take one out, and Koshi nearly winces at how small it is.

     “The hospital has enhanced their security when they noticed how much blood they were missing,” she explains, looking at the bag in her hands with a deep frown etched on her face. “Hitoka and I have been doing what we can, but it’s been getting harder and harder to keep sneaking out the same amount as before.” She looks up at him with deep worry in her face, and her fingers tighten slightly around the bag. “And we’ve been getting a lot more clients recently, because other distributors are having the same problem. I can only give you two bags, Koshi.”

     “That’s more than enough,” Koshi says with a reassuring smile. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a small wad of cash. One of Kiyoko’s hands immediately reaches out to grab his wrist, stopping his movements.

     “No.” Kiyoko shakes her head, pushing the bag of blood against Koshi’s chest. “It’s too little; I can’t accept any money from you.”

     “Kiyoko.” She looks up at the harshness in Koshi’s voice, only to find an unexpectedly soft smile on his face. “Please, take it. The risk you and Hitoka-chan take is too big. No matter how much blood you’re able to sneak out, me and all your clients should be nothing but grateful to you two. So please take the money.”

     Koshi grabs the bag from her hand and offers her the money one more time. Kiyoko hesitates for a moment before taking it with a soft sigh.

     “Thanks, Koshi,” she says with a sad smile.

     “Right back at you.” Koshi lets his hand fall on her shoulder in a reassuring gesture. “And don’t worry about it. We’ll be fine.”

     His words, accompanied by an affectionate squeeze on her shoulder finally manage to get a sincere smile out of Kiyoko.

     Koshi leaves the house a few minutes later with two small bags of blood inside his messenger bag. He returns Kiyoko’s wave and friendly smile, and waits until she closes the door before starting to head back home.

     “Now, what will I do with so little blood?” he mumbles to himself with a tiny sigh, the sound of his voice accompanied only by the echo of his footsteps as he makes his way down the street.

~•~

    “Here you go.”

     Kageyama looks up from his book at the sound of Koshi’s voice. His eyes land on a big glass, filled almost to the brim with blood. It looks thick and dark under the dim light of the living room, and it’s enough to make Kageyama’s eyes shine.

     He sits up on the couch and grabs the glass. He’s about to take it to his lips when he remembers something, and he looks up at Koshi with a questioning look.

     “What about you?”

     “Oh, I already ate,” Koshi answers with a wave of his hand. A tiny frown appears on Kageyama’s face. “What’s wrong?”

     “It’s just that . . . We always eat together,” Kageyama mumbles, his frown deepening slightly.

     “Sorry, sorry,” Koshi apologizes, scratching the back of his head with a tiny smile. “Kiyoko asked me to eat with her, since it was her feeding day as well. It’s been a while since we saw each other, so I guess she wanted to talk.”

     Kageyama stares at him for a few more seconds, and then shrugs, accepting his guardian’s explanation. Koshi nearly sighs with relief when Kageyama finally takes the glass to his lips and starts gulping down the blood. He does his best to ignore the sharp pang of hunger that hits him as he watches the contents of the glass slowly empty into Kageyama’s mouth, forcing his smile to stay fixed on his lips.

~•~

     "Alright, alright, so you're a volleyball genius, but I bet you can't name three songs by Beyoncé, so who's the real genius here?" Hinata boasts as he puts away his personal volleyball. Kageyama went harder on him for their little toss sessions than Daichi ever did for summer training.

     "Who?" Kageyama asks with a slight turn of his head.

     "I was definitely kidding when I said that. C'mon! You don't even know who she is? She's world famous!" Hinata sputters in awe and shock at Kageyama's ignorance. Last week, Hinata had brought him scented erasers, and Kageyama almost ate the one that smelled like cotton candy. Hinata tried it, too, but that was when he was seven and didn't know any better.

     "Shut up!" Kageyama turns his head. "It's some singer. So what? Volleyball is cooler than listening to music."

    "They can happen at the same time!" Hinata exclaims as he zips his bag closed. "You know what? Next time I'll even bring my CD. I don't really know English well, but whatever! We can play volleyball and listen to Beyoncé."

     "Mm," Kageyama makes a weird face. A lot of Kageyama's expressions look weird to Hinata, but this one seems more confused than annoyed, like they usually are. "I don't think I have a CD player."

     Hinata groans.

     "You don't make it easy to hang out. Guess it's just us and volleyball." Hinata heaves a small sigh. "Still, nothing? A PS3? Xbox? DVD player? Nothing?"

     Kageyama's face lights at the mention of a DVD player.

     "I have that! The thing for DVDs, not the other stuff." Kageyama makes note to see if he can look up what the other stuff is before continuing. "But, um, we can't really go inside. Koshi would know, and he'd throw a fit if he finds out I let a hu-stranger he didn't approve of in."

     Hinata groans again, louder and more annoyed.

     "Fine, whatever. You can come to my place to listen to it." Hinata eyes Kageyama for a small second. "And you _have_ to come some time or another! I asked my mom and she already said yes. You have my phone number. Just text me any time you wanna come."

     Hinata has asked before, each time ending in Kageyama's awkward fumbling before refusing the offer in its entirety. Not even when Hinata suggested after sunset when Koshi's gone. Nothing. Kageyama was way too scared about something, and Hinata has realized he has to stop asking why, even though it bothers him a lot.

     "I got it. I already said no, so you don't have to keep offering," Kageyama mumbles, looking surprisingly defeated.

     "Well, I have to keep inviting you. You're so dumb you'd forget. I have to remind you we're friends somehow!" Hinata laughs, lips spread wide and open for a bursting smile.

     Kageyama stares at his shoes like they're suddenly the center of the universe, biting on his lower lip.

     "Shut it."

     "Hey, hey! Stop acting so shy about it now." Hinata playfully elbows Kageyama on the ribs, elliciting an annoyed growl from the taller boy. "We're friends. Although, you'd have more friends if you just smiled more often."

     "Oh, I can't do that," Kageyama replies, rushed and serious, eyes wide. "Last time I tried to smile, Koshi said I almost killed all life within a five meter radius."

     Kageyama meant every word, but Hinata can't help but laugh when he imagines the horror of forcing Kageyama to smile.

     "You just gotta practice! Here, I'll help."

     The height difference is not in Hinata's favor as he leans up, reaching his hands to cup Kageyama's cheeks. The touch nearly freezes Hinata instantly, like Kageyama had no life in his face at all. The chill of the wind blows around them, but not to the extent that it should make Kageyama ice-cold after a harsh workout. Hinata's hands shake, but he refuses to let go before he sees Kageyama's smile, so he stretches out Kageyama's face to make a weird, gaping fish expression.

     Kageyama looks embarrassed with knitted brows and averted eyes, and he grumbles a couple of obscenities after pushing Hinata's tiny hands away.

     "Stop it! Friends respect personal space, dumbass!"

     Hinata laughs, with no cruelty or judgement.

     "Alright, alright. Just you wait! I'll have you smiling and so happy you'll cry some day!" Hinata vows, lifting a hand in a effort to seem solemn.

    Kageyama rolls his eyes and shrugs.

     "Whatever. You should be getting home soon."

    "Fine." Hinata concedes with a roll of his eyes. "But I'll totally keep this promise! Remember: laughing and happy until you cry. It'll happen!" Then Hinata checks the time and his eyes momentarily leave his sockets. "Holy crap, I am late! I promised my mom I'd help cook dinner. Bye, Kageyama!"

    Hinata fiddles with the straps of his bag for a moment, ensuring it will not fall off his bike from the high speeds he planned to ride to get home on time. In his rush, he pays attention to anywhere but near Kageyama, who's giving him a look of amusement. It almost goes without Hinata's notice, but he does see it from the corner of his eyes as he's casting a farewell wave.

     _"How could I think that was a lifeless face just now?"_ Hinata thinks while he peddles a a bit too leisurely for someone who needs to race as fast as he can back home.

~•~

     The monotone voice of his biology teacher fails to earn Hinata’s attention, busy as he is with balancing a pencil between his nose and his upper lip. He absently stares out the window, as his mind wanders far, far away from that day’s lesson on amphibians.

     His mind wanders, actually, quite close to a certain tall, dark-haired person.

     Hinata has found himself thinking about Kageyama quite a lot lately. Whenever he’s distracted, his mind immediately wanders to the first Kageyama-related thing he can come up with. And lately, Hinata’s mind has been mostly occupied by Kageyama’s weird behavior.

     Their relationship is a weird one, and Hinata is highly aware of that. After all, they met when Hinata busted Kageyama’s fence, and then became friends by fixing it together at night. They are an unusual pair, but that’s exactly what Hinata likes the most about their friendship. It is not that what has been worrying him lately; it’s just that recently, it seems like he’s realizing more and more weird things about the way Kageyama acts around him.

     First, there’s the fact that they only see each other after the sun sets. Hinata didn’t think much of it at first, but it started to become confusing when Kageyama began to downright refuse to meet him during the day. His excuses started to become more obvious every time, making Hinata think that Kageyama didn’t want to see him anymore. That thought was discarded once Hinata realized that Kageyama had no problem with meeting up with him during the night, but that only contributed to Hinata’s turmoil.

     Kageyama’s insistence on Hinata hiding from Koshi is also extremely weird to him. Judging by the things Kageyama tells him about Koshi, he seems like a really nice person. Hinata has a hard time figuring out why is Kageyama so keen on hiding him from the person he calls “his guardian,” but he still complies when Kageyama asks him to wait until Koshi leaves before showing up at his house, or when they make plans to meet up somewhere. Hinata’s first hypothesis was that Kageyama was actually the son of a mafia boss, and Koshi was his extremely strict and deadly bodyguard, but he had to force himself to accept that, as cool as that would be, it was also highly unlikely.

     Still, what puzzles Hinata the most, is Kageyama’s apparent lack of physical reactions.

     He didn’t notice at first, but once he realized that no matter how long they would practice tosses and spikes, or how fast they would run after each other during their random race matches, Kageyama wouldn’t sweat a drop, everything else started to become more obvious.

     No matter how embarrassed Kageyama was, he wouldn’t blush. His cheeks would remain pale as ever, despite any amount of stammering and wild gesturing that Hinata’s snarky comments would elicit. He was never cold, not even when Hinata himself was shaking like a leaf inside his thick jacket, but his constant complaints about the heat during the day over text messages revealed that Kageyama was actually very sensitive to warm weather. But on the few occasions that Hinata had touched him directly, his skin had felt cold, so cold that he worried Kageyama was about to die of hypothermia.

     “Maybe he’s a zombie?” Hinata mumbles out loud, letting his pencil drop on his desk.

     “Hinata.” His teacher’s sharp voice startles him, and he turns to give him a wide-eyed look. “Would you like to share your thoughts with the class?”

     “N-no, sir!” Hinata hurries to say, blushing to the roots of his hair when he hears his classmates stifle their giggles around him.

~•~

     Koshi snaps the scissors closed around the stem of a dead leaf. He carefully moves the tiny branches of the plant in search of more dead leaves to cut off, and then sets it aside when he finds none. Pushing the potted plant to the side, he goes to grab the next one.

     Akaashi has left him in charge of the task in the back of the store, while he works on helping any customers that show up. Cutting off dead leaves is the sort of relaxing work that Koshi loves to do, and Akaashi is kind enough to relegate those tasks to him.

     But recently, no task is relaxing for Koshi anymore.

     All of sudden, the smell of a human wafts over to him, and Akaashi’s polite greeting tells him that a costumer just arrived. Koshi takes a deep breath and sets the scissors down, closing his eyes. His fingers grip the wooden table until his knuckles turn white, his nose and brow scrunching up with the effort it takes to ignore the painful bloodlust that shakes him at the smell of a human nearby.

     The costumer leaves after a while, and Koshi finally relaxes. He mentally thanks every existing deity for the fact that Akaashi’s store isn’t very busy during weeknights as he reaches out to grab the scissors again.

     He hisses sharply when he feels the sharp blade cutting the skin of his thumb, cursing himself for leaving them open on the table. He watches as tiny droplets of blood emerge from his skin, shining a bright red against his pale skin. Before he can stop to think about it, he runs his tongue across the cut, and then sighs at the familiar taste of blood before wrapping his lips around his thumb.

It’s his own blood, and he knows it won’t qualm his hunger, but he still keeps sucking on his thumb, humming slightly at the metallic taste that spreads around his mouth.

     “Sugawara-san?” His head immediately snaps around to find Akaashi in the doorway, watching him with a worried frown. “I smelled blood. Are you alright?”

     “Yeah, I just cut my finger,” Koshi explains, raising his thumb. Once it’s out of his mouth, the skin begins to heal, and the wound is closed a couple seconds later. “See? Don’t worry about it.”

     Koshi turns to return to his work, but Akaashi’s stern voice earns his attention back a couple seconds later.

     “Sugawara-san, when was the last time you fed?”

     The question takes Koshi by surprise. He wraps his fingers around his thumb, completely healed by now, and makes an effort to put a relaxed smile on his face.

     “What makes you ask?” he says softly, but he knows from the way Akaashi’s brow furrow even deeper that his calm façade isn’t fooling him.

     “You look exhausted, and I can see that you’re shaking,” Akaashi explains, crossing his arms over his chest. “And  your thumb took way too long to heal.”

     Koshi grits his teeth together, knowing that there’s no way he can escape Akaashi’s observant eyes. No lie will spare him from telling the truth. So he lets his smile fall, and he gingerly meets Akaashi’s gaze.

     “A month and a week,” Koshi finally confesses. Akaashi’s eyes widen, and his face acquires a worried expression.

     “Sugawara-san, how are you even walking right now!?” he exclaims, making his way over to him.

     “I don’t know,” Koshi whispers.

     Akaashi grips him by the shoulders, staring at him like he’s about to drop dead right there. It makes Koshi feel vulnerable and pathetic, and it makes his whole body ache with the now-unavoidable weight of his hunger. Akaashi finally lets go of him and reaches out to grab the scissors. Koshi watches him with confusion, and then finally understands what his friend is trying to do when he takes one of the blades to his wrist.

     “No!” Koshi grabs Akaashi’s hand, effectively stopping his movements.

     “You need to eat!” Akaashi exclaims, struggling against Koshi’s strength.

     “I’m not gonna drink your blood!” Koshi manages to snatch the scissors out of Akaashi’s grip, and throws them on the ground behind him. “I know you go to Kiyoko’s too. Your rations have been getting smaller, too, haven’t them?”

     “Yes, but at least I’ve eaten something lately!” Akaashi shakes free from Koshi’s grip, looking sincerely offended at his friend’s refusal for help. “Why haven’t you been feeding? You don’t have enough money? I can give you money!”

     “I don’t need money, Akaashi!” Koshi nearly screams. He closes his eyes and takes a moment to calm down before continuing. “Kiyoko couldn’t give me more than two bags, and since they were so small, I gave mine to Tobio.”

     Akaashi’s face softens at Koshi’s admission, but his eyes still hold the same stern look as before.

     “Does he know?”

     “Of course he doesn’t know, he would kill me.” Koshi heaves a tiresome sigh, and then leans down to pick up the scissors from the floor. He places them on the table, turning his back to Akaashi. “I’ll be fine. Kiyoko said she would get some more blood for me soon.”

     “Are you sure you’re gonna be fine?” Akaashi asks after a few silent moments, his voice still laced with evident worry.

     “I promise,” Koshi assures him with a smile, turning back around to meet his gaze.

     It isn’t until Akaashi has returned to the front to greet some new costumers, that Koshi lets his smile drop. He returns to his previous task, thinking, as he stares at the scissors in his hands, that he is not sure if he will be able to keep his promise.

~•~

     Hinata is about to step out of the club room, hastily pulling on his jacket on the way out, when Nishinoya’s voice makes him stop dead in his tracks.

     “Hey, Shouyou! Where are you going?”

     “I’m . . . going to meet up with someone,” Hinata answers after a moment of hesitation.

     “Oh, you got a date?” Tanaka chimes in, wiggling his eyebrows in his direction.

     “T-that’s not it!” Hinata stammers, feeling a slight blush spreading across his cheeks.

     “You got a date with the vampires?” Nishinoya teases, elbowing Tanaka on the ribs.

     And suddenly, it’s as if something clicks inside Hinata’s head. It’s almost as if he had been putting together a very elaborate puzzle, and Nishinoya’s joke, uttered with so little seriousness, ended up being the last piece.

     As he sprints out of the club room, ignoring his teammate’s voices as they call his name, Kageyama’s voice echoes inside Hinata’s head over and over again.

     _“Wait until the sun sets.”_

~•~

     Koshi and Kageyama stretch as the ending credits of the movie they just watched begin to roll, the dim light of the screen barely illuminating their faces. The sun is just about to set, but the curtains are, as always, drawn to stop any sunlight from entering the house. The final rays of light for the day won’t reach them.

     “You wanna watch another one?” Kageyama asks, grabbing the DVD remote to pause the movie.

     “Nah, I think I should start getting ready for work,” Koshi says, squinting at his watch under the little light the TV screen provides.

     He stands up from the couch, and promptly collapses to the floor.

     “Koshi!” Kageyama springs up immediately, and crouches down next to his guardian. “Koshi, are you okay?”

     Koshi is on his hands and knees, shaking violently and breathing in deeply in an attempt to calm himself down. Kageyama places one hand on his back, and grabs Koshi’s arm with the other, searching his face with worried eyes. Koshi finally looks up and meets his gaze, and the darkness of his eyes only makes Kageyama’s worry intensify.

~•~

     The air feels hot in his lungs, and scratches his throat on its way out. But Hinata keeps gulping in as much of it as he runs down the street as fast his legs allow.

     _“There’s no way,”_ he keeps repeating inside his mind. _“I have to ask him. I have to know.”_

     He knows he’s probably mistaken, and that Kageyama will think he’s a complete idiot. But the doubt has now settled inside his mind, and it won’t leave him alone until he knows for sure.

     So he keeps running, alternating between cursing himself for not taking his bike in his rush to meet Kageyama, and trying with all his might to convince himself that he is wrong.

     He has to be.

~•~

     “Koshi!” Kageyama repeats louder when he gets no answer. “What the hell is going on? What’s wrong?”

     One of Koshi’s trembling hands shoots up to clutch to Kageyama’s shirt. His fingernails dig into the younger vampire’s skin, making him wince in pain, but he still doesn’t answer. Just as Kageyama is about to call his name again, Koshi’s face scrunches up, and he bites down on his lower lip with enough force to draw blood.

     “Koshi, answer me, for fuck’s sake!” Kageyama is beginning to feel desperate, his mind frantically searching for a reason for Koshi’s behavior.

     He grabs Koshi’s face with both hands and forces him to meet his eyes again. Koshi’s cold breath hits him in the face as he trembles uncontrollably inside his hold. Kageyama watches as blood drips down his injured lip and runs down his chin before dripping to the floor. He wipes it away with his thumb, and then his eyebrows knit together when another drop of blood immediately replaces it.

     “You’re not healing,” he mumbles. Koshi lets out a miserable whimper and drops his head into Kageyama’s shoulder.

     “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Tobio” Koshi mumbles between ragged breaths. He clutches to Kageyama’s shoulders, his entire frame still shaking.

     “Why are you . . .” Kageyama lets his voice drifts off when realization hits him like a bullet. He has seen this before: the shaking, the darkened eyes, the wounds not healing. “You haven’t fed, have you?”

     The only thing he gets in response is another pathetic whimper from his guardian.

~•~

     The sound of his feet colliding with the cemented sidewalk, and the sound of his shallow breath leaving his lungs accompany him, echoing inside his ears almost like an encouragement.

     _“I have to get there,”_ Hinata repeats inside his mind like an endless mantra when he starts to feel his legs and chest burning. _“I have to see him. I have to ask him.”_

~•~

     Kageyama forces Koshi to look up at him one more time, only this time he does it more roughly. His guardian’s eyes have gotten even darker, all traces of their usual warmth gone by now. His fingernails dig painfully into Kageyama’s shoulders, but the pain easily dissolves into the rush of familiar anger that invades the younger vampire.

     “Again, Koshi!? You did it again!?”

     “I couldn’t get . . . enough blood,” Koshi manages to choke out, his voice barely a whisper.

     “We could’ve shared it!” Kageyama nearly screams, shaking Koshi a little. “We’ve been through this, damn it!”

     It has happened before. This isn’t the first time Koshi completely forgoes his own needs in favor of Kageyama’s, ending up starving or putting himself in danger. And as grateful as Kageyama is for everything Koshi has done for him in the last six decades, seeing him in such a pitiful state only makes him want to punch some sense into him.

     Koshi whimpers and sobs one more time, and Kageyama knows he’s about to lose consciousness. He lays him against the couch, and reaches for the collar of his shirt, clicking his tongue.

~•~

     Hinata turns around the corner, and Kageyama’s house finally enters his field of vision. He can see the yellow fence, and the dozens of different colored flowers of the garden as he approaches it as fast as he can.

_“I have to see him. I have to ask him.”_

~•~

     Kageyama smells it first, and it makes him freeze in place with sudden terror. He watches as Koshi perks up, and his pupils dilate. All traces of Koshi’s previous pathetic state instantly disappear, only to be replaced with the signs of what Kageyama recognizes as a bloodlust-driven hunter. He knows, as he stares into his dark, dark eyes, that the thing before him is no longer his guardian.

~•~

     He finally, _finally_ reaches Kageyama’s house. He skids to a stop, nearly tripping over his own feet in front of the fence that separates the colorful garden from the sidewalk. Only then he realizes that the sun hasn’t set just yet, but he quickly discards his instinct to wait until it does. He’s done with waiting for the sun to set.

     So, instead, he plants himself on the sidewalk, and screams at the top of his lungs.

     “Kageyama!”

~•~

     Kageyama recognizes the smell. Usually, it would be nothing but pleasing to him. But right now, Hinata’s scent reaching him from the garden fills him with the utmost horror.

     And then, when the sound of the boy screaming his name outside invades the house, he can’t grab Koshi fast enough.

     Koshi is at the front door before Kageyama can even leave the living room, nearly tearing the locks open in his haste to open it. The younger vampire pounces into him as soon as the door is opened, holding him down as best as he can.

     Struggling to keep Koshi in place, Kageyama dares to look outside. Behind the fence, looking absolutely terrified and more than a little confused, is Hinata.

     “You idiot, what are-!?” he begins to exclaim, but he’s interrupted when Koshi lets out a loud, low growling sound inside his arms.

     Koshi manages to break free from Kageyama’s grip, and immediately starts to run towards Hinata. Once he steps out of the shadow and into the last rays of daylight, he stops with a scream, his skin hissing as it bristles and burns. It gives Kageyama enough time to tackle him to the ground. He also lets out a scream when the sun hits the skin of his face, gritting his teeth at the painfully familiar sensation.

     “Hinata, run!” he nearly begs, desperately holding onto Koshi to keep him in place. His guardian is no longer sentient, drove mad by uncontrollable hunger. He claws at the floor to try and get away, growling in Hinata’s direction and baring his long, sharp fangs. “Run, get out of here!”

     Maybe it’s the desperation in Kageyama’s voice, or maybe it’s the image of him holding down a clearly enraged Koshi, but Hinata finally reacts. Casting one last hesitant glance in Kageyama’s direction, the boy begins to run away as fast as his legs can carry him.

     Kageyama waits, burning under the sunlight, until he can no longer hear Hinata’s footsteps down the street. He musters all his strength and drags Koshi to the small shadow that the roof provides, nearly sighing with relief when he can no longer feel the sun burning his skin. Koshi is still trashing wildly inside his grip, made unrecognizable by his bloodlust. He slams Kageyama’s back against the ground, straddling him. Without giving him any time to react, Kageyama roughly grabs the back of Koshi’s head, and pushes his face into his neck, struggling to keep him in place.

     “Drink, you hungry idiot!” he screams.

     He can feel Koshi freeze on top of him, and then a few seconds later, the sharp pain of his fangs puncturing his skin. Kageyama hisses at the foreign sensation, and his whole face scrunches up when he feels Koshi begin to suck at the wound. He relaxes a moment later, his grip on Koshi’s hair softening until it almost becomes a caress. He can also feel the burns on his skin beginning to heal under the merciful protection of the shadows, and he absent-mindedly hopes that Koshi’s wounds are doing the same.

     Just when he’s about to tell Koshi to stop, that it’s enough, his guardian straightens his back, still on top of him, and wipes the blood off his lips with the back of his hand. Koshi gets off him and stands up on wobbly feet to stumble his way into the house. Kageyama follows after him, pressing his hand against the tiny wounds on his neck to stop the blood until they heal.

     Koshi unsteadily makes his way into the living room, holding onto the walls for support. Kageyama tries to help him, but Koshi brushes him off almost immediately. He stands behind one of the couches, holding onto it with both hands until he can stand steady on his own legs. Kageyama watches him closely, fearing another sudden outburst, and relieved, at the same time, to see that his guardian’s wounds have already healed.

     Koshi’s hair, usually perfectly styled into place, falls into his face when he turns his face towards him after a few silent moments.

     “Who is that human?” Koshi mumbles, looking at him from behind light-colored locks. His eyes shine with barely contained anger, and Kageyama knows that there’s no way he can keep lying to him now. “Why does he know your name?”

     “He’s . . . a friend,” Kageyama confesses after a moment of hesitation. Something dark flickers inside Koshi’s eyes, something that makes every hair on his body stand up on end. He keeps talking nonetheless, trying to maintain his composure in the face of Koshi’s imminent wrath. “He’s the one who stole your flowers. He helped me fix the fence.”

     “For fuck’s sake, Tobio!” Kageyama flinches at Koshi’s sudden outburst. His guardian has never been one to raise his voice, much less curse _._ That gives him a perfect measure on Koshi’s anger. “After all these years, after all that we’ve done to keep _you_ safe; running, fighting, hiding . . .” Koshi grabs at his own hair and throws his head back, the trembling picture of pure, uncontainable ire. “And you go and befriend a human!?”

     “Hinata is harmless!” Kageyama defends. He watches as Koshi’s eyes widen even more, something that seemed impossible a few moments ago.

     “ _Harmless?_ ” he repeats, and the way he sounds calm and collected all of sudden almost makes a shiver run down Kageyama’s spine. “Do you remember the last time you thought a human was harmless, Tobio? Because I do.”

     Kageyama nearly gasps at the blow that Koshi so swiftly delivered. He can’t stop the images of burning skin and mocking kids from flashing across his mind, along with a pang of very familiar sadness in his chest. Kageyama shakes his head, as if to disperse the cruel memories, and then turns to look at Koshi with fresh determination in his eyes.

     “Hinata is not like that.”

     “ _All_ humans are like that!” Koshi yells, once again losing his composure. This time, Kageyama stands his ground, holding his guardian’s angered gaze with an impassiveness he didn’t know he possessed. “They’re cruel, hateful, and irrational. And your precious little _friend_ isn’t any different!”

     Kageyama’s brows knit together at Koshi’s spiteful words. He slowly shakes his head from side to side, trying hard to swallow the bitterness in Koshi’s accusations.

     “You’re the one who sounds hateful and irrational,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. But it’s enough to make Koshi freeze in place, eyes wide and mouth agape. Kageyama has, unknowingly, delivered a powerful blow. “You can’t possibly think all humans are the same,” Kageyama continues, this time with more impetus. He takes a step towards Koshi, who in turn takes a step back. “They can’t be completely bad. There _are_ good humans, and you know it.”

     “I don’t-” Koshi starts, but Kageyama cuts him off almost immediately.

     “There’s something else bothering you.”

     “Something else?”

     “Yes. You don’t want me to stay away from humans merely because you think they’re dangerous. There has to be something else.” Kageyama’s eyes search into Koshi’s, trying to find the answer that he knows his guardian won’t be willing to give him. He asks anyway. “Why do you want us to stay away from humans so badly?”

     Koshi gasps at Kageyama’s question. He closes his eyes, and his frame becomes rigid, almost as if his words have physically hurt him. Koshi can feel himself trembling, his whole body shaking, and once again, he can’t control it. He grits his teeth, and feels his long, sharpened fans brush against his lower teeth. The disgusting sensation is enough to make him ball his right hand into a fist, and punch into the nearest wall with a loud cry.

     Kageyama nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of Koshi’s fist colliding against the wall, and tearing a hole into it. He watches as Koshi, panting and shaking, retrieves his hands and shakes off tiny pieces of dry paint and cement. His bloodied knuckles immediately begin to heal under Kageyama’s gaze.

     “Humans die, Tobio!” Koshi yells, even louder than before. He breathes heavily for a moment, letting in big gulps of air and shakily releasing them a few moments later. They don’t need to breathe when they’re not talking. Kageyama knows Koshi is trying as hard as he can to calm himself. He slowly turns around to face Kageyama, and the younger vampire is surprised to find almost no traces of anger in Koshi’s face. It has been replaced by something that Kageyama can’t quite pinpoint, something he has never seen in Koshi’s face, but still makes his chest ache. “They die. And there’s nothing we can do about it,” Koshi finishes slowly, his voice breaking at the end of the sentence.

     Then he turns around and storms out of the room, leaving Kageyama to fight against the harsh weight of his last words.

     In the heavy silence Koshi has left behind, Kageyama’s eyes dart to the fresh hole that his guardian has left on the cement wall. It's the first time he has seen Koshi do something like that.

~•~

     Koshi forcefully slams the front door behind himself, almost making the entire house shake. He frantically runs his fingers through his hair in an attempt to calm himself down, and then turns around and kicks the wall with frustration. He doesn’t tear a hole into it this time, however, thinking that since they have, for some reason or miracle, managed to not attract any nosy neighbors with all their previous noise, kicking a hole into his wall might as well do the trick.

     “God _fucking_ damn it,” he hisses under his breath. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

     He takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment before slowly letting it out. It does very little to soothe his anger. He looks around for something that might calm him down, and his eyes land on the colorful arrangement of flowers that fill his beloved garden. The sun has already set completely, but the night is still pleasantly warm.

     Koshi jumps out the front steps and follows the small pebbled trail into his garden, walking amongst his many bushes and plants. Koshi lets his fingers brush against petals and leaves, letting out a soft sigh at the gentle feeling it leaves on his fingertips. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply, letting the nightly breeze bring the sweet scent of flowers and grass to his nostrils.

     “Excuse me.” A voice snaps him out of his trance, nearly startling him out of his skin. Koshi whips around, searching for the source of the voice. He finds it behind the fence, along with a head of short brown hair, a strong build, and big, soft brown eyes. His eyes widen and he nearly gasps at the sight of the young man standing behind his fence, smiling gingerly at him. “Have you seen a teenage boy walk past? He has orange hair and . . .”

     The man stops talking, trailing off when he notices Koshi’s impossibly wide eyes fixed on him. Koshi can feel his lips trembling as he tries to make sense of the sight before him, slowly shaking his head from side to side. Finally, he manages to utter a single word, broken, and tinted with a sad note of disbelief.

     “Daichi?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dontsaycrazy: Time for some DaiSuga, folks.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as we enjoyed writing it. As always, I'd like to thank you for your feedback, and also encourage you to keep letting us know what you think of our story. College, and life in general, is being really though and time-consuming lately, so your comments are the extra encouragement we need to keep writing. So please, please leave us some comments, I promise that we will really appreciate it ♥


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